This man queried a surprise $600 bill, and was charged $21.50 for the phone call

Thursday, 23 October 2025

When Simon Palmer questioned Public Trust about the size of a bill he’d received relating to his role as a property manager, he was surprised to then be billed for the phone call. He’s now taken a petition to Parliament. Tony Wall reports.

When Nelson’s Simon Palmer became property manager for a disabled man about 18 months ago, he didn’t realise there was a fee for Public Trust to audit the man’s financial statements.

The charges, outlined in the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act, apply to the protected person, rather than the property manager, but it’s the manager who has to deal with it.

Public Trust is the Crown entity mandated by law to audit the statements on behalf of the Family Court.

The first bill, about $600 for a three-month period of statements, landed in Palmer’s spam mail, and he missed it. Then he got an overdue notice.

“I rang these people up and said, ‘I’ve got this overdue account … can you tell me what this is for because it doesn’t actually say what it’s for’.

“She said, ‘That’s for auditing [the man’s] finances … it’s done on a per hourly basis’.

“I said, ‘So am I getting charged for this phone call’, she said, ‘Yeah, you are’.

“Sure enough when I asked them for a breakdown of the costs, there was a $21.50 charge for me contacting them.”

As Stuff revealed this week, many people have been hit by new charges since the Government dropped a subsidy that had covered the full cost of the audits for those with less than $20,000 of assets.

At the same time, it raised the income and asset thresholds at which property managers must be appointed, meaning fewer people have to submit the financial statements each year.

The Ministry of Justice estimates the changes will impact 2561 property managers.

Stuff has been contacted by several people who say they had no idea the fees had been introduced and only learned of them when an invoice arrived from Public Trust.

Because the man Palmer is property manager for has assets valued over the threshold, he wasn’t covered by the Government subsidy, but he still didn’t realise there was a charge.

He believes the fees are “outrageous” and discriminatory.

Georgie Hills, spokeswoman for Public Trust, said the regulated rate for property manager examinations was $247 an hour and was intended to reflect the cost of delivering specialist services.

Contact the reporter: tony.wall@stuff.co.nz

She said the total time taken to complete Palmer’s examination was about two and a half hours, and included a review of the statements, a report back to the court and time spent on emails and phone calls with Palmer.

“We’re conscious of the cost to families and aim to carry out our reviews in a timely and cost-effective manner.”

Labour is calling on the Government to revisit its decision to scrap the subsidy.

“It’s concerning that in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, the Government is scrapping a subsidy that helped cover … fees for some of our most vulnerable people,” the party’s public services spokesperson, Camilla Belich, said.

“The changes apparently came without warning or consultation, leaving many families suddenly burdened with huge administrative costs.

“It just shows how out of touch this Government is.”

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee previously told Stuff the Government was “not currently considering” re-introducing the subsidy.

She said any changes to property manager orders would be considered when the Law Commission came back later this year with recommendations from a review of laws around adult decision-making capacity.

After his experience, Palmer reached out to his local MP, Labour’s Rachel Boyack, and presented a petition to Parliament.

The petition asks that the House amend the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act “to ensure that no person requiring legal guardianship is discriminated against financially by the cost of required annual auditing fees”.

The petition claims the Act is “unfair, discriminatory and exploitative of those with a disability and must be changed”.

In an accompanying submission, Palmer wrote that questioning unreasonable costs and finding resolution under the Act “is almost impossible”.

“As it stands, the Act is neither fair nor reasonable, expecting the most vulnerable to pay the associated costs of financial audits,” he wrote.

Palmer said the petition was being considered by the Petitions Committee and he hoped to give oral submissions.

Hills said Public Trust was aware of the petition and would be happy to provide information to the committee if requested.

Palmer has worked out that the $624 Public Trust bill equates to about $23 for each of the 27 bank transactions on the protected person’s account for the three-month period that was audited.

And the bill represented 2.63% of the man’s total annual income, which was a “huge sum”.

“It’s unfair for people with disabilities. It’s not really about the cost, it’s actually about fairness.”