Claims against City of Newcastle
You can make a claim for compensation if you believe that we are legally responsible for personal injury or loss or damage to your property.
How to make a claim
- Consider if you are eligible for compensation; you may wish to seek legal advice. We are not able to provide legal advice.
- If you have insurance, you should contact your insurer first. If they believe we are at fault they will contact us.
- Gather your evidence. You will need to substantiate the damage, loss, or injury that we are responsible for. Evidence might include quotes, photos, videos, medical documents, reports, or witness statements.
- Submit your claim online.
Submit your claim
What is your claim related to?
Why we may not be responsible to pay compensation
- We are complying with our statutory duties and responsibilities under relevant legislation the NSW Civil Liability Act 2002
- You can't prove City of Newcastle was legally responsible for your loss.
- You haven't supplied enough evidence to substantiate your loss.
- The loss or damage was caused by an act of nature, such as a wind or storm which was beyond our control.
- The damage was caused by a tree shedding. This is considered a natural event, and beyond our control.
- The damage was caused by tree roots and we were not previously aware of the problem. You can > report a public tree that is causing damage here.
- The incident occurred on a road we do not manage, such as arterial or private access road
- The damage, loss or injury was caused by a contractor acting on behalf of us, e.g., roadworks, or park maintenance. These claims should be submitted directly to the contractor.
- The incident was caused by infrastructure belonging to utility companies, such as Telstra, Optus, NBN, water, power or gas companies. These claims should be submitted directly to the relevant company.
- The responsibility for maintenance of your property lies with the property owner. Private property owners are responsible for the maintenance of stormwater systems, gutters, downpipes, gully pits, and other parts of drainage systems.
What happens next
- Submit the claim online
- You will receive an acknowledgement email that will confirm claim receipt and will also explain how your claim will be managed.
- We or our independent claims managers may need to contact you if we need more information.
- Your claim will be assessed on a Without Prejudice basis.
- You will be advised of the outcome of your claim in writing.
- Assessing a claim for compensation is a complex process and relies on the information and evidence you provide. We respond to claims as quickly as possible and thank you for your cooperation and patience.
There are specific rules for certain claim types:
The legislation that applies to our responsibility for injury or damage resulting from the use of local roads, including footpaths within the road reserve, is the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) (the Act). There are several principles in the Act that determine whether a Council would be liable for compensation, including that we must have known about the risk and failed to act within our available resources to fix it.
We are responsible for mowing and maintaining grounds such as walkways, parks, playgrounds, and sporting fields.
In some cases, accidents may occur where an object is thrown up from a mower or brushcutter and causes damage or injury. In these cases, you will need to prove that the damage was caused by a City of Newcastle team member or equipment. There are times when other companies, strata complexes or other organisations organise mowing and brushcutting works, in which case the claim should be submitted to the organisation responsible.
We look after over 70,000 trees on public streets, and hundreds of thousands within the Local Government Area. For information regarding our responsibilities relating to tree maintenance visit our Trees page online.
If we had no knowledge of a tree causing damage, we will not accept liability. You must show that we are legally responsible for any loss, damage or injury suffered.
Tree shedding and weather events are natural occurrences, and we will unlikely accept liability for claims relating to these. You might be able to claim through your own insurance for these events.
Depending on the circumstances of your claim, we may need more information, or there may be further action you will need to take afterwards. We will contact you if this is the case.
We provide a range of waste management services, including general waste collection (red lid bins), green waste collection (green lid bins) and bulk waste collections.
Newcastle household recycling services (yellow lid bins) are managed by SOLO Resource Recovery and transported to a separate facility for processing. If you have experienced loss, damage or injury due to a SOLO Resource Recovery vehicle, contact SOLO Resource Recovery directly on 02 4947 8511 between 8.30am and 5.00pm weekdays.
The legislation that applies to our responsibility for damage caused by waste collection vehicles is the Road Transport Act 2013 (NSW) and Road Rules 2014 – NSW Legislation.
Submit your claim
What is your claim related to?