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Rates Postponement Scheme

Rates postponement scheme

Are you a senior citizen and having difficulty paying your rates? Would postponing your rates assist you in staying in your home? Council offers a Rates Postponement Scheme for older homeowners that lets you defer paying rates – for the rest of your life or until you sell your home.

The objective of the postponement policy is to enable Council to provide older ratepayers with more options and flexibility. It lets older ratepayers decide how best to manage their finances and also gives older ratepayers the opportunity to stay in their houses for longer.

Do you qualify?

The following conditions and criteria apply:

The ratepayer must be over the age of 65 (or over the age of 60 if on a benefit)
The property must be insured
The postponed rates must not exceed 80 per cent of the available equity in the property. The available equity is the difference between the Council’s valuation of the property (the capital value at the most recent revaluation) and the value of any encumbrances against the property, including mortgages or loans.
The property must be the prime residence of the ratepayer and owner occupied.

How much does it cost?

The cost of the scheme is paid entirely by those whose rates are postponed – it is not subsidised by other ratepayers or funding. In addition to the annual rates, you will also pay:

Six-monthly interest at our marginal rate
Annual levy of 1.25% on balance to pay for scheme management and reserve fund
$100 application fee

Find out more

We’ve put together a brochure that explains the rates postponement scheme in detail, along with an eligibility form. You can get a copy from Nelson City Council at Civic House, or download the Rates Postponement for Senior Ratepayers Brochure (165KB PDF) from the Nelson City Council website.

The Policy

Download the Rates Postponement Policy (165KB PDF) from www.nelson.govt.nz

Contacts for rates enquiries

You can contact Council’s Customer Service Team on +64 3 546 0200, Fax +64 3 546 0392 or e-mail rates@ncc.govt.nz

Nelson City Council
Civic House
PO Box 645
110 Trafalgar Street
Nelson
Phone 546 0200 (all hours)
Fax: 546 0239
enquiry@ncc.govt.nz

Nelson Grey Power AGM Report 2017

MINUTES OF NELSON GREY POWER ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

HELD AT THE STOKE SCHOOL HALL

ON SATURDAY 8th APRIL 2017

The meeting commenced at 2.00pm.

Present

38 attendees.

Welcome

Vice President Kevin Gardener welcomed everyone and apologised to the membership regarding President Gordon Currie’s absence.

Superannuation Age of Entitlement

Superannuation Changes

National president of the Grey Power Federation Tom O’Connor said the increased age of entitlement for national; superannuation did not come as a surprise.

“We have known for some time that the Prime Minister was heading in that direction. We have some concerns about the rationale for the move as we are confident that national superannuation is affordable in the long term, particularly if other changes had been made.”

O’Connor said the federation’s concerns were not for people currently receiving national superannuation but for those people who will be entering their retirement years in the next decade or more.

Abandoning Key’s pledge on superannuation ‘an act of astonishing political folly’

OPINION: We’ll probably never know whether Monday’s announcement on NZ Superannuation was carefully planned, or simply inept political improvisation. Either way, it is highly likely that Bill English has just cost National the 2017 General Election.

As if high-interest student loans and unaffordable houses were not intergenerational injustice enough for Generation X, a Baby Boomer Prime Minister has just advanced their retirement age from 65 to 67.

For older New Zealanders, English’s announcement has stirred-up bitter memories. Fears that John Key’s pledge to leave NZ Super alone had put to bed for nine years have been reawakened.

English sees NZ Super as the last remnant of the welfare state’s universalist heritage – and he hates it.

Your working life is two years longer

Susan Edmunds and Catherine Harris

Tauranga mum Maxine Paterson will be part of the first cohort of New Zealanders who will become eligible for her superannuation after the age of 65, under Prime Minister Bill English’s plan revealed on Monday.

His proposal is that the age of eligibility for NZ Super will start to rise from 2037, to hit 67 by 2040.

No one born before June 30, 1972 will be affected.

Paterson will be 65 in 2038. She said at this stage it seemed too long away to care. But she said how manageable it was to continue to work at 65 would depend on her physical health.

Aged Care / Health March 7, 2017

Labour, the Green Party and Grey Power’s aged-care inquiry to begin tomorrow

A new, Opposition-led inquiry into the state of aged care in New Zealand kicks off tomorrow.

Labour and the Greens have again joined forces with Grey Power to hold hearings around the country on the conditions and care for people in rest homes and residential facilities.

It comes six years after the parties held the Aged Care review, and would investigate whether the problems identified in the 2010 report were still occurring.

That inquiry concluded that care for the elderly was nearly at crisis point and said the sector was in “desperate need of a revolution“.