Court Dismisses Planning Enforcement Charge Against Woman After Learning That She Hired An Architect & Did All She Could In The Circumstances
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By Alric Lindsay
Martha Noralee Ebanks appeared in the Summary Court on August 25, 2025, to face a charge of failure to comply with an enforcement notice. However, the Chief Magistrate dismissed the charge after hearing her efforts to comply.
The brief background is that Ebanks previously came before the court, at which time she presented receipts demonstrating that, from November 2023, she paid an architect to deal with planning submissions. Reportedly, the planning department only served her an enforcement notice seven months after she engaged an architect.
In the circumstances, the Chief Magistrate said:
It wasn’t her fault. She paid [to engage an] architect.
And she probably shouldn’t have gotten an enforcement notice, but that’s not her fault because she did everything she was supposed to do.
The Chief Magistrate concluded:
…the matter is discharged.
Note to readers
Over the past 12 months, many people have faced charges in court for failure to comply with enforcement notices. In most cases, the ongoing breaches were due to architects taking a long time to complete tasks on their part on behalf of the property owners.
Given that daily penalties are applicable, the courts have been placed in a position where they have to consider fines amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. The bill increases as long as after-the-fact planning has not been submitted or approved. The process may be drawn out further if architects do not complete the work they were engaged to do.
In any event, some of the people facing these charges are of low financial means and cannot pay the penalties. Given the circumstances, some people have received a small fine.
Rather than clogging up the courts with these types of matters, it may be that the Legislature should consider changes to the Development and Planning Act, allowing people another method to resolve planning breaches or changing the starting and end dates when fines become effective or basing fines on income or square feet instead of the number of days.
Where the breach occurs under section 18 of the Development and Planning Act, it states the following:
Penalties for failure to comply with certain enforcement notices
21. (1) Subject to this section, where an enforcement notice has been served under section 18 on the person who was, when the notice was served on that person, the owner or occupier of the land to which the enforcement notice relates and within the period specified in the enforcement notice, or within such extended period as the Director may allow, any steps required by the enforcement notice to be taken (other than the discontinuance of any use of land) have not been taken, that person commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of five thousand dollars and, in the case of a continuing offence, to a further fine of one thousand dollars for every day after the first day during which the requirements of the enforcement notice (other than the discontinuance of any use of land) remain unfulfilled.
(2) If a person against whom proceedings are brought under this section has at some time before the end of the period specified in the enforcement notice for compliance with the notice (or of such extended period as the Director may allow for compliance with the notice) ceased to be the owner or occupier of the land, that person shall, upon information duly laid by that person and on giving to the prosecution not less than three days’ clear notice of that person’s intention, be entitled to have the person who then became the owner or occupier of the land joined in the proceedings.
(3) If, after it has been proved that any steps required by the enforcement notice have not been taken as aforesaid, the original defendant proves that the failure to take the steps was attributable in whole or in part to the default of the person joined in the proceedings as aforesaid, that person may be convicted of the offence and if the original defendant further proves that the said original defendant took all reasonable steps to secure compliance with the enforcement notice, the said original defendant shall be acquitted of the offence.
