City to sell property for unpaid rates
A burnt, demolished and abandoned property has racked up $348,943 in unpaid fees and Wellington City Council wants it gone.
The council is selling 1 Allenby Terrace to recover rates and other costs unpaid for the property, which was gutted in a raging fire in 2011.
At the council’s request, the High Court has ordered the sale of the property to recover the costs.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the combination of unpaid rates, legal and demolition costs made up the final sum.
Most of the costs were associated with the demolition and legal fees required to secure the right to demolish, MacLean said. ‘‘It’s very rare for the council to get the court to sell property like this.’’
He didn’t know how long the rates hadn’t been paid for but said it was several years.
In 2009, a teenager who knew the tenants set the 100-year-old threestorey house on fire.
In 2011, in a second fire, the house was burnt almost to the ground. It was treated as a suspicious fire but the site was deemed too hazardous for police
and fire investigators to examine.
It became a target for break-ins, graffiti and vandalism and a haven for squatters. In 2012, students who lived near the house were begging for it to be taken down.
The house, then abandoned, was set on fire again in 2014. It was demolished later that year but that wasn’t the end of the council’s legal battle, with money owed to it totalling $348,943.
Wellington High Court registrar John Earles said $77,808 amounted for legal costs, interest on debt, asbestos removal, and some demolition in 2011.
In addition to that was outstanding rates, which totalled $34,533. A further $236,602 was outstanding just for demolition.
But that wasn’t all, as interest on the unpaid rates would be extra.
The last time the council sold properties to recover unpaid costs was in 2013, MacLean said.
They were a derelict house in Newtown and an abandoned property in Grenada Village, on which the rates bills were unpaid for almost a decade.
Rainey Collins Lawyers senior registered legal executive Lindsey Smith said it was uncommon for the council to take action by selling a property for unpaid rates. ‘‘I’ve been doing this for over 10 years, and it’s not a decision that I’ve ever come across.’’
The Allenby Tce property is currently owned by Auckland’s Herne Trustees Ltd, comprising Charanjit Singh Janjua and Servinder Kaur Parmar.