The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has released its decisions on the maximum prices the Valuer General can charge local councils for land valuation services, effective from 1 July 2025 for a period of 4 years to 30 June 2029.
Tribunal member Sharon Henrick said the Valuer General’s operations are undergoing changes and IPART has considered the impact of these changes on prices paid by councils, which use land valuations to calculate rates.
"Our role is to ensure that councils only pay the efficient costs for those services,” Ms Henrick said.
“We received valuable feedback from stakeholders in response to our Draft Report, which has helped to inform our decisions.
“We have set a single maximum price of $7.93, which will apply to each land valuation provided to councils.
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"This is 0.2 percent higher per valuation, on average, compared to our 2019 determination.”
For most metropolitan councils prices will increase by up to 10.1 percent and coastal councils by up to 1.7 percent, before inflation.
"Prices for regional councils will decrease on average by 13.4 percent, before inflation."
The Valuer General proposed increased prices to local councils of between 21 percent and 38 percent.
The Valuer General’s proposal includes a new approach in which about half of valuations and objections will be handled directly by Value NSW, instead of being conducted by external contractors.
“This is a big operational change and so there are uncertainties around future costs," Ms Henrick said.
"This uncertainty led to IPART setting a 4 year determination rather than 6 years.
“IPART has not compared the performance efficiency of either in-house or external contracting.
"IPART’s determination provides a revenue envelope, and it is the responsibility of the Valuer General and Value NSW to determine the appropriate use of these funds.”
