A woman who paid just $600 each for two Murupara sections in 2012 was forced to give them up six years later after failing to pay rates 10 times greater than her purchase price.

Marie Castle bought the properties at 6 Karamea St and 10 Hinau Place in July 2012.

Two years later, after Castle had made just nominal rates payments, Whakatane District Council issued rate recovery proceedings. The matter went to Tauranga District Court in 2016, by which time Castle owed the council $1,506.32.

GOOGLE Marie Castle bought 6 Karamea St in Murupara for $600 in 2012.

She failed to pay that sum, so the council took steps to enforce the judgment.

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By February this year Castle had paid $570 towards the judgment sum. But by that stage she owed the councils $12,185.53 in outstanding rates and penalties, and the council obtained a court order declaring the properties abandoned and authorising it to sell them by sale by public tender.

Castle appealed that decision to the High Court. In an affirmation that referred to Queen Victoria, the magna carta and legislation from 1862, she said the council did not have the power to demand rates from her as the land was purchased "fee simple".

In a recently released decision Justice Mark Woolford said the difficulty for Castle was that the 1862 Act had been repealed and the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 was now in force.

The judge said there was nothing to suggest the properties were non-rateable and as Castle was the listed ratepayer she was liable to pay the rates. He said the council had the power to enforce any judgment for outstanding rates by selling or leasing the property.

He said the rates were not invalid and there would be no stay of enforcement in relation to the council's proceedings and Castle was to pay the council costs for the court action.

The Hinau Place section is 0.065 hectares. The Karamea St section is 0.07 ha.

Both have council capital and land values of $5000 and annual rates bills of $1048 to Whakatane District Council and $171 to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.