C26/2006 PROPERTY VALUATION EXERCISE - 2006/2007 FINANCIAL YEAR

Replace — d by DI No.

C — 33/2007

Purpose

The purpose of this Departmental Instruction is to provide information on the annual property valuation exercise.  Details on each of the five stages are provided below.

Background

Every October/November, income support cases requiring a property valuation are automatically selected and forwarded to the Australian Valuation Office (AVO) for valuation by April in the following year.  Once the valuations have been completed, cases are returned to the Canberra Office, DVA with the new valuation amount.  This information is then forwarded to locations for individual case updating.

A listing of manual cases (those that have not previously been valued by the AVO) is also produced at the time of the bulk run.  Locations are required to manually prepare and forward requests for valuation for these cases to the AVO.

Production run

The data extraction was carried out on 13 November 2006.  The data containing information on the automatic reviews was forwarded to the AVO on 14 November 2006.  An Excel spreadsheet containing the manual cases has been forwarded to the Director Reviews, Income Support for distribution.

Number of cases extracted

The data has been extracted through the AD Hoc Inquires System (AIS).

The following is a breakdown of automatic and manual cases extracted from this year's bulk run:

State

Auto

Manual

Trusts & Company (Auto)

Trusts & Company (Manual)

NSW

611

169

6

78

VIC

663

121

8

82

QLD

441

131

15

94

SA

175

46

NIL

41

WA

182

35

2

34

TAS

103

23

NIL

8

Total

2175

525

31

337

Criterion for extracting cases

The following criteria was used for extracting cases:

• All income support pension recipients (SP, AP or ISS) who have a property, business (with a property), farm or sublet portion of their home and who are either;
• assets tested, or

income tested and have total assets in their assessment within $10,000 of their prescribed assets limit (PAL).

Cases excluded from exercise

The following pensioners have been excluded from this year's bulk run:

• Pensioners who have had a property valuation done since the last bulk run (11 November 2005);
• All single pensioners who are assessed as blinded and are not paid rent assistance; and,
• All couples where both are assessed as blinded and are not paid rent assistance.

State Office to action manual cases

Manual cases have been forwarded to the Director Reviews, Income Support in an Excel spreadsheet for further action.  Trusts and Company cases have already been extracted.

Action is required to provide the AVO with a form containing detailed information on each of the manual cases where a property valuation is required.  Records are to be kept and a case registered in the Claims Management System (CMS) to ensure that all such requests are returned by the AVO and action completed.

Commission Decision

The Commission has endorsed the provision of a maximum 3 month period commencing from the date of the new pension rate determination for those income tested pensioners affected by property reviews.  This will enable pensioners to rearrange their circumstances if they choose, before the pension is varied due to the property valuation.

This policy only applies in circumstances where the property valuation affects the entitlement to the extent of moving the pensioners from the income test to the assets test or cancels their pension altogether.

Refer to DI C32/2005 for further information.

Processing of cases that may require 3 month provision

For the 2006/2007-property valuation exercise 174 auto cases and 86 manual cases have been identified as currently being income tested and therefore possibly affected by the Commission decision.

The AVO will provide valuations on the 174 auto cases by the end of February 2007.  This will provide time to do some preliminary assessment of which cases are likely to require the three months notice.  Such cases can then be targeted for priority processing in July.

To assist with preliminary assessment of which cases are likely to require the three months notice the 86 manual cases have been listed at the top of each state tab in the Excel spreadsheet that has been forwarded.

Using AVO Online Valuation Register

All requests to AVO should be submitted via the AVO online valuation register, using the project code of 'Bulk Valuation'.

AVO conduct valuations

The AVO will conduct the property valuations in the period from December 2006 to April 2007.  The AVO will provide updated valuation information to the Canberra Office by the end of April 2007 for asset tested cases and February for income tested cases.

Updated property valuations

Printouts and an Excel spreadsheet of the updated property valuations will be provided by the Canberra Office.  These reports can be expected in February 2007 (income-tested cases) and in late April 2007 (assets-tested cases).

Update valuations

Once the updated data is received manual action will be required to update the Central Data Base (CDB) to take effect in conjunction with the indexation of the free areas in July 2007 (Ordinary Income Free Area, Asset Value Limit & Adjusted Income Free Area).  Cases where the value of property has reduced may be actioned for increase of the service pension from the next available payday.

Date of valuation to be used in PIPS

The date of valuation to be used is 13 November 2006 as when updating cases in PIPS (Pensioner Information Processing System) for this exercise.

This is not necessarily the date that the AVO has valued the property.

It is essential that this date be used to enable all the appropriate cases to be selected for next year's exercise.  Using another date creates complications for the bulk extraction.

Processing Information

Screens and processing information for PIPS/PC can be found in Departmental Instruction C54/96.

Contact Officer

The contact officer for this exercise is Amy Curry (02) 6289 6734, Business Operations, Income Support .