Hobart City Council set to write off more than $700,000 in unpaid parking fines deemed noncollectable

While the Hobart City Council has cracked down on parking in the last few years, it looks like $700,000 of old parking tickets will be written off. Do you have an overdue fine from before this date?

• BIG LIST: 4675 fine dodgers from around Australia owe Tasmania $10.5M
• No confidence motion in code of conduct system passed at LGAT general meeting
• DA for 9-unit development raises concerns about density, traffic and impact on Charles Darwin trail

MORE than $700,000 of old parking fine debt that has been deemed noncollectable looks set to be written off by the Hobart City Council.

It is recommended at council’s finance and governance committee meeting on Tuesday that $712,789.31 be written off.

The debt comes from 11,247 parking infringements which were issued prior to 2008 that are now statute-barred from collection.

Prior to the 2008 introduction of the Monetary Penalties Enforcement Service, the process for chasing unpaid infringement notices required a hearing at the Magistrates Court.

The Magistrates Court would set down approximately 52 hearing dates each year to deal with Hobart parking matters.

Hobart City Council is set to write off more than $700,000 in unpaid parking fines.

The council would prepare an average of 500 matters for each hearing date.

“At the conclusion of the 2008 calendar year, a considerable number of matters remained lodged with the Magistrates Court, but unserved on defendants – the City of Hobart attempted to obtain new court dates and reserve a hearing with limited success,” the committee report said.

“An operational decision was taken at the time that all unresolved and outstanding balances were to be placed in a file and referred to the Tasmanian Collection Service for action, with some initial success.”

The TCS told the council in May 2017 that due to the age of the outstanding debts they were unable to pursue recovery and recommended the amount be written-off as the likelihood of recovery was considered low.

“Apart from a reduction in both the accounts receivable and impairment balances, there is no effect on the overall City of Hobart financial position,” the report said.

Following the introduction of new parking meters and in-ground sensors throughout the city, the council was expected to pocket an extra $2.2 million from on-street parking revenue during the 2018-2019 financial year compared to the year previous.