THE Raby Bay Ratepayers Association is urging members to opt out of a class action against Redland City Council over a canal maintenance levy.
The call comes as solicitors from Shine Lawyers and council last week held an initial case conference in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.
Ratepayers association president Chris Reeves and secretary Tony Lovett said in a statement that lawyers were likely be the only beneficiaries from court action.
“It would not take a lot of common sense or intelligence to realise that if the council lost this action, they would have to recoup the funds from somewhere,” they said.
“That could most likely result in an unwelcome increase in all Redlands rates or in the differential paid by canal property owners.”
Shine Lawyers said council would have insurance to cover the costs of legal action.
But Mr Reeves and Mr Lovett said the advice received by RBRA was that Redlands, unlike its larger neighbours, did not have this type of insurance cover.
They said people who listened to arguments about minimal risk and cost-less legal action had not had much experience with lawyers and court cases.
“Bunfights like this against our own council are actually against ourselves and fellow ratepayers,” they said.
They said council had used an extremely favourable methodology to calculate refunds to ratepayers.
“…(This) resulted in refunds much higher than expected,” they said.
“The result for Raby Bay ratepayers was that even though all monies collected by council had actually been spent, even though council took responsibility for paying out a loan of around $3.5 million, which had been taken out to expedite the works, each ratepayer collected refunds of around $6800.”
Shine senior solicitor Tristan Gaven said people would be entitled to opt out of the class action if they did not want to be part of the proceedings.
This process would likely begin early next year.
“Group members will be provided with detailed information as part of the opt out process,” Mr Gaven said.
“Shine Lawyers would encourage all group members to make their own decisions about the action.”
Council will file its defence by December 10.
