Yarra Ranges residents who have racked up parking infringements in the region in the last 20 years may be entitled to a partial refund after a council review revealed a technical error.
The issue arose at a council meeting on 16 January 2001, where a recommendation was put to Council that the statutory penalty amount be increased from $20 to $40 which was passed.
The issue arose in 2004 as until then Victoria had a set penalty unit of $100, which was not indexed but since then the Victorian treasurer has indexed the penalty unit, which in 2025 is now $197.57.
Since 2004, Council has issued 37,814 affected infringements, with a total value of $2,619,380. $1,119,932 has been made available for partial refunds.
The 2001 resolution at the council meeting remains valid, but all subsequent increases to the penalty amounts by annual indexation or otherwise were invalid because those amendments had not been supported by a Council resolution.
Yarra Ranges chief executive Tammi Tose said they sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
“This issue was identified through an internal audit and we will be contacting affected individuals directly where possible,” she said.
“We’re also inviting residents who believe they may have been impacted to apply for a refund. “Importantly, we are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
The most common offence which the error applies to is parking for a period longer than indicated but also includes having parked failing to pay and obey instructions on sign, stopping contrary to a No Parking sign, stopping on a bicycle parking area, stopping on a motor bike parking area, parking contrary to requirements of parking area, parking not at an angle of 45 degrees, parking not at an angle of 90 degrees, parking not completely within a parking bay, parking a long vehicle exceeding the minimum number of bays and parking a wide vehicle exceeding the minimum number of bays.
Mayor Jim Child reaffirmed the Council’s commitment to transparency and accountability. “Good governance means owning our mistakes, acting transparently, and putting our community first – and that’s exactly what we’re doing here,” he said.
At the Tuesday 28 October council meeting, the council’s Director of Communities Leanne Hurst said the intention is to notify recipients the council has on file for the past three years.
“We intend to write to as many people as possible that we have records on file for to notify them of the commencement of the refund scheme,” she said.
“There will be an online portal and the team have done a lot of work in trialling the process to make sure that as much of that information as possible can be, once the applicant’s details are identified, can be pre-populated for them to make it as seamless as possible for that process to occur.
“We are requesting that people make an application because we don’t have access to their private information, we actually require them to provide that to us so that we can check against our records and as quickly as possible reimburse for those amounts that have been overcharged.”
Merri-bek City Council (formerly Moreland City Council) uncovered a similar issue earlier this year, which affected 11 parking offence types between 1 July 2013 and 11 June 2025.
Billanook Ward councillor Tim Heenan said for him, it’s about trust so to see the body of work that’s been done to find a mistake in something as far back as 2001 and correcting it is really important.
“In the eyes of the community, if they knew about this and they didn’t think that we were prepared to stand by the mistake that was made all those years ago and correct it in such a way that people need to have a refund for amounts of money that they were not required to pay for all the different infringements, I think that’s the proper and respectful way to go to the community,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to and hoping that many people come forward. I think it’s important for the mayor and councillors for the next year to get communication out in the community.
“Not just on the website, but that we do extra work on social media throughout the whole year, so that we can get that word out well and truly to the communities.”
Residents can apply for a refund via a secure online form on Council’s website from Wednesday 5 November.
Refunds can be claimed over the next 12 months, and applicants will need to provide basic details about their infringement and payment.
For more information and to apply for a potential refund, visit yarraranges.vic.gov.au/InfringementRefundScheme, visit a Community Link or call the team on 1300 368 333.
