Uniting Church Homes (Inc) and City Of Stirling

Uniting Church Homes (Inc) and City of Stirling was a case before the court concerning a dispute regarding the exemption of land from local government rating. The applicants, Uniting Church Homes (Inc), argued that their land was used exclusively for charitable purposes, specifically for providing aged housing through independent living units under a lease-for-life arrangement. The City of Stirling challenged this exemption, contending that the land was not used exclusively for charitable purposes. The applicants required entry and ongoing payments, with the entry payment determined by market value, and the minimum age for entry was set at 55 years, although the average age of residents was significantly older.

The legal issues before the court included whether the land was used exclusively for charitable purposes, specifically for the relief of the aged, and whether any activities on the subject lands that could be seen as standing outside the principal charitable purpose were either reasonably necessary to the fulfilment of the main purpose or an inevitable concomitant of the pursuit of that main purpose. The court examined the character and atmosphere of the places in question and considered the statutory exemption criteria and the relevant case law. The court held that there was no evidence of a collateral or independent purpose that detracted from the purpose of the relief of the aged or from the exclusivity required by the statutory exemption.

The court's reasoning was that the existing "whole character and atmosphere of the place[s]" under review was relevantly charitable under the present tests and, therefore, the applications for review should be allowed. The court held that the actions of the City were part of a revisiting by society of the question of what it means to be aged and where the burdens should lie in terms of an indisputably "greying population." However, the court noted that these questions were essentially tangential to this review, as the legislature had not sought to address them by, for example, narrowing or limiting the charitable status that relief of the aged confers. The court concluded that the charitable concepts applicable to the aged, as developed by the courts, would continue to apply, leading to the results set out above.

The final orders of the court were that the applications for review should be allowed, and the land in question should be exempt from local government rating.