City warns of asset seizures

The City of Greater Geraldton will seize property owned by people who intentionally disregard planning and building regulations and laws, in a bid to recover ratepayer-funded court costs.

City chief executive Ken Diehm said the City would put the seized property up for auction but would only adopt the “hard-line” tactic as a last resort.

“This message is for the people who have blatantly disregarded and continue to ignore the law by failing to follow council or court-ordered directions in regards to the development of their properties,” he said.

“Residents who have invested their life savings into their family home shouldn’t have to put up with commercial and industrial businesses springing up next door or their neighbours building glorified garden sheds as houses.”

According to the City, hundreds of thousands of dollars were being poured into enfor-cing State laws that required all buildings and developments to comply with basic standards.

A statement released by the City cited a recent case which resulted in $209,000 of court costs and wasted “hundreds of hours” of staff time.

“This is just one case and that is an outrageous amount of money that our ratepayers are unnecessarily having to pay out of their pocket,” Mr Diehm said.

“We have several other cases where people we take to court are refusing to pay the court costs and this is a cost that the community bear and it is one of the factors that pushes up our rates.”