About 30 former Cave Rock unit owners are being thousands in rates before receiving a payout for their demolished homes.

About 30 Sumner unit owners are stuck paying thousands of dollars in rates for land they cannot live on, as they remain in a standoff with IAG over an insurance payout.

Last week it was reported that 91-year-old owner Bertelle​ Smyth, who has indebted herself to pay at least $8000 in Christchurch City Council rates and penalties for the land.

Her Cave Rock Apartments unit was one of many demolished after the February 2011 earthquake.

SUPPLIED Bertelle Smyth is one of about 30 Sumner unit owners paying rates for land they cannot live on.

Smyth's son, Kieran, said the council had shown a lack of compassion for his ailing mother's situation.

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Cave Rock body corporate chairman Mike White said residents owned "fresh air" after 30 units comprising the main block were demolished.

SUPPLIED Age Concern chief executive Simon Templeton finds Bertelle Smyth's situation upsetting.

Having to pay rates on the land, while in dispute with IAG, was a bitter pill to swallow, he said.

"At the end of the day we're getting no service . . . for those rates, there's no rubbish collection, there's no water, there's no nothing in respect of those properties.

"All of us have got to have somewhere else to live, so in whatever way the individuals that have had to move on are paying rates on another property," White said.

"We're all double-whammied now with rates."

The dispute with IAG had not helped the owners' cause.

"You wouldn't say that's the reason for it, but it's certainly exacerbated the situation," White said.

Kieran Smyth said his family approached the council asking for a significant reduction to his mother's penalties or whether they could be remitted altogether.

There appears to be no hope of further relief.

Asked for her opinion on the matter, Lianne Dalziel said she did not have information on personal cases, so could not comment.

Council head of financial management Diane Brandish said the council developed a range of earthquake-related remissions, which were applied to the property Smyth was living in.

"There are no plans to introduce any more earthquake-related remissions," she said.

Rebates, considered separately to earthquake remissions, were Government-funded and available to low-income ratepayers occupying their house on July 1 each year.

The maximum rebate was $610 per annum.

"Earthquake rates remissions are a council initiative and in the case of residential ratepayers means that they pay rates on their land only if their house is unable to be occupied," Brandish said.

Age Concern Canterbury chief executive Simon Templeton found Smyth's situation "upsetting".

"We are many, many years down the track now and I suppose what we commonly hear from older people is that they're told 'give us time and we'll get all this sorted it out'.

"At the age that she is at, and her state of health and things, a lot of people they don't have the time to wait," he said.

Bertelle Smyth's situation was "tricky", Templeton said.

He understood bare land rates were in place to stop issues such as land banking.

"She can't build on it. That is, I think, inherently unfair."

Seven of the 11 elderly people who once called the apartments home died waiting for their insurance payout.

The body corporate remained in dispute with IAG, meaning former residents had not been paid out for their destroyed homes.

It claimed the complex would cost $23 million to rebuild, but IAG had only paid out $10m.

The body corporate rejected the insurer's final offer of the difference between indemnity value, $10m, and the sum insured, $16m.