Will my rates go up?

Not necessarily.

Councils use property values as the basis for distributing the rating responsibility across their ratepayer base.

Council does not automatically receive more money because property values increase. While some people may pay more or less rates, this amount is dependent on the change in value of their property relative to the overall valuation changes across the council area.

Council budgets are set annually, with a ‘rate in the dollar’ used to ensure that the required rate income is received from ratepayers.

In simple terms, calculating how much each property contributes to rates each year involves determining the total amount of income required to maintain infrastructure such as roads, footpaths, buildings, etc and provide services and dividing this across the total value of all rateable properties to establish a ‘rate in the dollar’. The value of each rateable property is then multiplied by the ‘rate in the dollar’ to calculate the rates contribution for that property.