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Published on 17 September 2026
We will launch a refund scheme after discovering a historical administrative error that means we have over-charged on 11 types of parking infringements. We'll be offering refunds on the overcharged portion of the fines, which will be between $30 and $60 depending on the year of issue. Council records for the affected infringements go back to 2003.
The scheme will begin on 1 October 2026, when an application form will be made live on this webpage. It will run for 12 months. The Road Safety Act 1986 enables Councils to set the penalty for 11 ‘green sign’ parking offences up to a maximum of 0.5 penalty units, and many councils do this. But a specific Council resolution is required to set the parking penalty units. Without this, a default rate of 0.2 penalty units applies. We have recently confirmed that, due to the historical administrative error, the 0.5 penalty unit rate has been applied to the 11 infringement types without evidence of a specific Council resolution to do so. We are one of a number of Victorian councils impacted by this issue. A comment from our CEO Robyn Seymour: "We apologise to affected motorists for the inconvenience. "As soon as we were made aware of this potential issue, we investigated thoroughly and could not find evidence in our records that the necessary Council resolution had ever been made. "We’re taking accountability for the situation and putting a process in place to rectify it. "We’re committed to making sure affected motorists are refunded appropriately for the over-charged amount of their fine."
The impacted infringements are:
To be eligible for a refund you must have paid a parking fine issued by Surf Coast Shire Council for one of the impacted infringements. If your infringement was issued prior to 1 July 2003, the online form will not work for you and you will need to contact Council directly. You will need to provide the required evidence in support of your refund application. Parking fines issued for other offences such as parking in a loading zone or clearway have had the correct fine applied and are not part of this refund program.
From 1 October 2026, this webpage will enable you to search by registration number to check if your vehicle has been issued a fine that is eligible for a refund. You will then need to fill in an online form on this webpage and provide the necessary evidence to confirm you were in possession of the vehicle at the time the fine was issued.
Our records document fines against vehicle registration numbers. To receive a refund, you will need to demonstrate that you were in possession of the vehicle at the time the fine was issued, by providing one of the following:
If you cannot produce one of these forms of evidence, you can submit other documentation demonstrating your possession of the vehicle at the time the fine was issued. These claims will be manually assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Our aim is to assess all refund applications within 30 days, and process refunds within a further 30 days. All applications will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, meaning timeframes may differ.
Refunds will be made by electronic transfer to a BSB and bank account number You will receive a notification from us once your refund has been paid.
The parking infringements were issued to those who had broken the road rules, therefore the fines themselves remain valid. The amount charged exceeded the default rate permitted without formal approval. To correct this administrative error, we will issue partial refunds – the portion of the fine amount that was incorrectly charged.
Yes. Please specify this in your refund application.
A penalty unit is a standard monetary amount used to calculate fines and penalties under Victorian legislation. The dollar value of a penalty unit is reviewed and updated each year by the Victorian Government. For the 2026-27 financial year, one penalty unit in Victoria is $209.10. Therefore, 0.5 of a penalty unit is $105 and 0.2 of a penalty unit is $42. These amounts have changed over time.
No. You can request refunds for all fines issued to the same vehicle registration number in a single application. You’ll need to be able to establish that you were in possession of the vehicle at the time each fine was issued.
If your fine was determined through a court proceeding, you are not eligible for the refund scheme. Courts can impose penalties as they see fit. Once a matter has been resolved in court, Council has no authority to adjust or refund the outcome.
If you have paid your fine in full through Fines Victoria, you are eligible to apply to Council for this refund scheme. If you had an unpaid fine sitting with Fines Victoria, it has now been returned to Council. We will send you a reminder notice showing the adjusted (reduced) amount owing. In this case, you do not need to apply through the refund scheme.
No. We are not offering interest payments. The refund will be for the overcharged portion of the fine.
You can request a review via our standard process by lodging a complaint.
This is a legacy issue that occurred due to a technical administrative error in the past. Given it is a widespread issue, it is clearly complex and related to multiple changes in legislation. Of approximately 6700 infringement types that are available to be issued across Victoria, this procedural requirement is understood to be unique to the 11 identified infringement types.
We received a letter from the Ombudsman, sent to councils throughout Victoria, which warned of the potential issue. We acted immediately by investigating our records thoroughly, and discovered we were impacted.
We anticipate it could be around $83,000. The total overcharged amount over time is approximately $833,000, and other councils have had a take-up rate of between five and 10 per cent for their refund schemes. We will be aiming for a higher take-up rate than this to ensure the maximum number of impacted motorists are refunded, but the historical nature of the issue means it is very unlikely that all money will be claimed.
Please send any questions to refundscheme@surfcoast.vic.gov.au or lodge a request.