Part of our role at Auckland Council is to ensure everyone pays their fair share of rates. We want to make sure the funding of our services is shared fairly, and we have a rating policy in place for this.
In order to make sure we are accurately and fairly treating each rating unit, we need to be consistent to all ratepayers in Auckland. This is achieved by ensuring the rates assessed are in line with our rating policy, which can be found in the 2023/2024 Annual Budget.
Why are serviced apartments rated this way?
“This is a two-way conversation between the council and property owners or managers. We play our part by checking and reviewing the accuracy of our data on a frequent basis, but we note that the status of a property can change from year to year,” says Rhonwen Heath, Auckland Council Head of Rates Valuations & Data Management.
With numerous rating units across Tāmaki Makaurau in this category, it is an ongoing task to keep usage information up to date. Property owners, bodies corporate and property managers can therefore proactively contact us to notify us of any changes.
“We proactively try to ensure the accuracy of our information by each year asking the managers of serviced apartments in Auckland if there are any properties that should be designated as residential, rather than commercial,” adds Rhonwen.
Generally, managers know how each apartment unit in their building is being used and can tell us if it is being used commercially. We also rely on body corporates to play their part in ensuring they are letting us know how a serviced apartment in a hotel pool is being used.
Once we receive proof of residential use, such as a utility bill in an owners’ name, we can change the designation. Rest assured, our rates team is prioritising these requests to ensure customers are not disadvantaged and queries of this nature are dealt with in a timely manner by our team.
Treating ratepayers fairly and equally
Frequent updates and review of this rating information allows us to maintain the accuracy of our information every year. This enhanced proactive approach has only improved the accuracy of our rating database, ensuring a fair and consistent approach for all Aucklanders.
Our rates policy states that serviced apartments are charged non-residential rates unless they the owners provide proof that they are being used for residential purposes. This can be changed to residential if we are provided with proof that a serviced apartment is not being used for commercial accommodation, as some are.
In the past, Auckland Council charged non-residential rates to confirmed serviced apartments only. However, post-COVID, we received complaints about serviced apartments being used for commercial use, but owners paying residential rates.
It is important that we treat ratepayers fairly and equally and rate them according to the rating policy. As a result, we took an enhanced proactive approach and contacted the hotel ‘pool managers’, asking them to let us know how every apartment was being used, rather than just the ones they knew the use of.
This resulted in almost 2,000 serviced apartments coming back as ‘unknown’ or the contact did not respond. We then followed up on this correspondence throughout April and May with the managers, to ensure as many of these as possible had the correct classification.
My residential serviced apartment has defaulted to non-residential – what should I do?
“Rest assured, our rates team is prioritising these requests to ensure customers are not disadvantaged and queries are dealt with in a timely manner,” says Rhonwen.
If anyone believes their rates have been charged incorrectly, we encourage them to contact our team at rates.data@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz and more information can be found on our website on what supporting documents might be needed.
