By Sharon Webb

A CHUDLEIGH business has dodged paying rates they owe to Meander Valley Council because of a legal technicality. In a Devonport Magistrates Court hearing in March, Magistrate Leanne Topfer threw out the council’s claim for $891.63 in rates on Fanny and Rembertus Beerepoot’s Melita Honey Farm shop at 39 Sorell St Chudleigh because the property’s address was missing on a letter sent from the Tasmanian Collection Service. However Magistrate Topfer ordered the Beerepoots to pay $566.84 in rates on their 33 Sorell St property. In court the Beerepoot’s legal representative claimed the council’s later production of the original letter which contained the address was a version council staff had ‘knowingly fabricated’. Magistrate Topfer said she believed ‘sloppy Tasmanian Collection Service practices’ were to blame. In the past the Beerepoot family has claimed religious grounds for not paying rates claiming their property belongs to God – but on the day Magistrate Topfer handed down her decision there was no mention of religion. In 2017 the Beerepoots owed Meander Valley Council $9332 because they had not paid rates since 2010 and the council sold their home to recoup the rates. Even though an anonymous benefactor had paid the rates on the two Chudleigh properties for them, the family still owed rates on Blue Wren Hideaway, their 250 square metre house on 2.4 hectares in Mole Creek. The council put the property up for auction and it sold for $120,000 – a low price that stunned locals because it was probably worth $500,000. After deducting rates and auction expenses, the council returned the remaining $110,000 to the family, only to have Rembertus Beerepoot hand it back. The Beerepoots said they would not collude with what they saw as ‘a hostile sale’. The unusual situation was made worse when the new owner of Blue Wren hideaway Geoffrey Styles took it over, finding $50,000 of fixtures and fittings removed and damag done, with local police unwilling to investigate.

The Beerepoots also wrote Mr Styles a welcoming letter, saying ‘Your act of possession is an act of theft’ but ‘we bear you no ill will’. Meander Valley Council’s director of corporate services Jonathan Harmey described the March court decision as disappointing. ‘The council certainly has the option to reissue a new letter to the property owners and recommence a further minor civil claim for the second property,’ he said. Outside the Magistrates Court Ms Beerepoot told a friend the council’s legal challenge was ‘God testing us’. ‘God had promised he’ll give us the strength to get through it. We’re responsible to do what God tells us to do,’ she said. Ms Beerepoot also said her father, Hendricus Beerepoot, had offered to pay the rates before he died in 2013 but ‘we said we didn’t want to’. Several weeks after the court decision Mr Harmey confirmed the Beerepoots still had not paid their rates but he ‘expects the property owners to meet their obligations and pay the outstanding amount, as per the court’s finding’. Mr Harmey would not comment on how council planned to convince the Beerepoots to pay rates they still owe from 2018, 2019 and 2020.