Dead mayor’s rates bill paid
A former New Plymouth mayor is finally free of his council debt – more than 100 years after he died.
Albert Cracroft Fookes owned 8.49 hectares in the small central Taranaki town of Midhirst at the time of his death in 1916, but for the more than a century afterwards nobody paid the rates on the land.
So the Stratford District Council had the 42 plots, which were scattered around the town, declared abandoned and bought them.
The council then worked for five years to sell the land back to the residents, m ost of whom were blissfully unaware of the ownership issue.
Last month, the sale of the final plot was settled, to the joy of council special projects’ manager Neil Cooper.
‘‘It has taken a while, and it was a challenge – it was suggested I’d never get it done,’’ Cooper said. ‘‘It was a really unusual situation.’’
While the rates had not been paid in the entire time since Fookes died, the council was only looking to get three years’ worth back – a total of $4196.92.
Cooper had previously said the century’s worth had already been waived ‘‘because you can’t get money out of a dead person’’.
Fookes, who lived into his late 70s, became the second mayor of New Plymouth after emigrating to New Zealand from England in 1861 and fought with the militia in the Taranaki Land Wars.
In 1878, he made a deal with the Government to buy 2023ha of land between the Manganui River and the Piakau Stream, which he subdivided into 40ha blocks and built roads on.
As part of the agreement, Fookes also got 162ha for himself which he subdivided into residential lots and roads to form the beginning of Midhirst.
But some of the roads were never developed and remained as empty lots under his name, building up rates over the following century.
In 2017, after trying to get in touch with any of Fookes’ descendants, the council successfully lobbied to the High Court to
have the land declared abandoned.
The following year, the council bought the 42 plots, which ranged from 150 square metres to 1.2 hectares, for $88,000.
By late 2020, all but three of the plots had sold.
Cooper admitted that some residents had been ‘‘dragging the chain’’, but said others were not in a financial position to buy the plots.
For that, council offered for them to pay off the land over one of two years, and Cooper said two buyers took that option.
The project has finished up cost neutral, after paying back Fookes’ bill and the amount council paid for the land.
‘‘That was the intention all the way through.’’
Although Cooper admitted he was ‘‘glad’’ to see the end, he said he had enjoyed the process as he had never worked on anything like this before.
‘‘I don’t know of anybody in the country that has.’’
In the minutes of the council’s policy and services committee’s last meeting, ninth-term councillor John Sandford congratulated Cooper on the completion of the project.
Sandford ‘‘felt it was one of the most monumental tasks council had achieved’’, the minutes state.