> They do not care who _pays_ but the rates demand will be sent to the owner of > the property.
Urr, they (Me in this case, I work for a council) don't care who they send the rates demand to, as long as they pay... Our rating system (Along with most other councils in NZ I expect) does have to store Legal Description or CT (Certificate of Title) information accurately. It does however store the address and name of someone who pays the bill. We send a lot of rating demands to solicitors offices, Family trusts, Banks... In a lot of cases we do not actually know who owns the land, only who pays the bill. Technically we have a requirement to know the owner, but unless the property has changed hands in the last 10-15 years, we don't have an easy way of finding out the legal owners details without pulling the CT from Linz, which we have to pay $7 a shot for just like everyone else, so we don't until there's good reason to do so (Building permits being issued on the property etc). 'gnight.. (yay for the AB's! :-) ).
