Skyrocketing Rates Contributing to Home Loss

As the Deputy Chair of Grey Power Hamilton, I was contacted by a distressed Real Estate agent who has been contacted by three pensionerswho need to sell their home because they cannot afford the rates.

Does anyone understand the stress the financial position thesethree homeowners find themselves in? They are cash poor but asset rich.However, this is not just an asset to them, it is their home.

The asset value was not the purpose for owning a home. Itwas purchased by saving for the purpose of providing shelter for the family andretirement. It is the place they have spent a lifetime developing, a safefamiliar place with friends and neighbours they know, including endlessmemories. Selling this home is like giving up a part of themselves.

The home was never purchased to earn money, yet the ratesdetermination process deems them, unfairly, to be too rich to deserve to staythere.

What options are available to these three retirees?

1.       Sell and go to a retirement village (Risk:insufficient capital to move into a retirement village)

2.       Sell and rent (Risk: their money runs out and they are left with no shelter)

3.       Council Rates Rebate ( insufficient to ease the financialburden of skyrocketing rates demands)

4.       Bank Reverse Mortgage (Risk: insufficientcapital to move into a retirement village)

5.       Council Reverse Mortgage (Risk: Council now ownsyour home and controls your future housing options)

The announcement by Hamilton Council in 2025 stated thatrates will increase by an average of 15%. In my case the rate for 2024 was$4,060.60 and in 2025 is $4,548.00. This rate increase is $18.30 per fortnight.

My superannuation increase for the same period is $29.16 perfortnight. That leaves $10.86 for the sky rocketing energy and insuranceincreases, not forgetting the even bigger increase in the cost of food.

Hamilton City Council distributed $212,250 as a rates rebatein 2020. They are now wasting $500,000 on investigating a ‘Ratepayer AssistanceScheme’ (reverse mortgage), that is not required and morally should be usingthis money to increase the rates rebate. Would this increase ease the financialplight of many home owners? More importantly, how does this ‘solution’ doanything but put off further the need for the council to rein in its wastefulspending. When a pedestrian crossing costs $750,000, which is more than mostpeople will have saved over their entire lifetimes, it is hard to justify theserates increases.

Unfortunately the 5 options illustrated above do not solvethe problem as the home owner has no control over Council excessive expenditureand increases expressed in a percentage seriously disadvantages those on themiddle and lower income.

As a community we need elected members who listen to thecommunities real life stories and finds solutions that ensure these potentialcalamities do not occur.

Your vote for change is important.

- Raymond Mudford -