The City of Stirling claims it has racked up a bill of more than $53,000 in legal fees after suing a ratepayer over a $1899 rates debt.
The city took a Scarborough ratepayer to the Magistrates Court last year over the dispute and a magistrate ordered the ratepayer to pay the city $53,344 in legal costs.
A District Court judge has now found the decision was made in error and ordered a retrial.
Legal proceedings were first brought against the ratepayer for failing to pay their 2023-24 council rates, which they disputed, arguing that previous payments from 2022 and 2023 should have been applied.
After months of attempts to recover the debt, the city sued the ratepayer in May 2024.
The rates bill was eventually paid in April 2025, but a dispute remained over legal costs and the matter proceeded to trial in June 2025.
A magistrate subsequently awarded the city $53,344 in legal costs, finding the ratepayer had no legal basis in their defence and that the costs incurred were both reasonable in amount and for work reasonably incurred.
However, after a challenge to the court’s decision, the case is now set for a retrial after the District Court found there was an “insufficient evidentiary foundation” to assess the city’s costs without details of the work actually undertaken being provided.
In a ruling delivered last month, District Court Judge Matthew Curwood found the magistrate made an error in concluding the legal costs awarded were reasonably incurred and reasonable in amount.
“There was no real dispute about the underlying debt, and in the absence of supporting evidence or analysis of how time was expended, whether by reference to hourly rates or some other methodology, it is difficult to be satisfied that the amount claimed was reasonable in amount,” Judge Curwood said.
“The absence of such analysis, in my view, gives rise to a legal error in the assessment for the purposes of (statutory recovery powers).”
Mr Curwood also noted that no enquiry was made into which practitioners performed the work charged, the precise tasks undertaken and the time spent on them, whether there was duplication between different practitioners, and the extent to which the claimed costs related to matters outside the scope of the recovery proceedings.
While unable to comment on the specific details of the case as proceedings are ongoing, a City of Stirling spokesperson told PerthNow the city sought to ensure unpaid rates and legal costs were recovered so they are “not borne by other ratepayers”.
“It is important for the city to pursue unpaid rates and the recovery of legal costs to ensure equity for all ratepayers,” the spokesperson said.
“The city follows a prescribed process involving reminders and final demands before initiating a claim for unpaid rates with the Magistrates’ Court. This is not a step which is taken lightly.”
In a statement given to PerthNow, the ratepayer at the centre of the dispute said that as the court outcome focused on legal costs, it left him with unanswered questions about how the matter had been handled.
“External oversight bodies commonly decline to investigate conduct while a matter is before the Court,” they said.
“That leaves no real accountability for how a citizen came to be exposed to such disproportionate legal costs in the first place.”
They expressed concern that, in their view, administrative conduct was left unexamined by the current process.
“The Magistrates’ Court did not address the conduct that led to the dispute as part of the costs issue before it. The District Court corrected the narrow legal error and sent the matter back. At each stage, the conduct itself remained unexamined,” they said.
“But if the court then resolves the case on a narrow basis and makes no findings on the earlier conduct, the practical result is that serious administrative conduct may never be scrutinised at all.”