Orange residents owe millions in unpaid water bills and council rates

At the end of April, the Central Western Daily submitted a Government Information Request form asking for details about outstanding council rates and water bills.

What came back showed that a little more than $4 million was owed across the two categories.

As of May 10, 2023, there were 19,626 properties which were required to pay council rates.

The number of assessments with at least one year in arrears was 677 or 3.4 per cent. In total, the amount owed to the council was $1,757,702.38, with council rates levied annually.

A council spokeswoman said the current total council rates in arrears was lower than the long term trend.

"When a rates account gets seriously behind, it's often a difficult situation where is council routinely incurring extra costs to rectify neighbourhood problems associated with that property that the owner has not dealt with (weeds, hoarding, etc)," she said.

"These costs are added to the amount council is owed and can be legally recouped when the property is sold."

For water, the numbers were higher across the board, despite there being less properties - 19,464 including ones that are non-rateable such as churches and schools - that were required to pay.

The number of assessments with at least one quarter in arrears was 1,522 or 7.7 per cent. The water arrears balance as of May 10 was $2,264,717.93. Water accounts are issued quarterly.

The trend for total water rates in arrears was higher than the long-term trend, but the spokeswoman said less than ten accounts were responsible for the bulk of the overdue bills.

"Sometimes extra water rates fall due because of major water leaks," she added.

"Generally it's the responsibility of the property owners to repair a leak on private property.

"When this happens as part of a 'hardship case', council can consider writing off these unexpected costs, once leaks are repaired."

So how much do the top offenders owe?

Well, for council rates, the largest amounts owing ranged between $34,546.67 and $44,505.34 with the total of the five largest amounts outstanding coming to $189,345.31.

For water, the largest amounts owing were between $69,010.86 and $171,752.02, although the council added that "most" of these have had major leaks and therefore may have their bills reduced.

The total of the five largest amounts outstanding for water was $618,828.76.

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