Paul and Monica Gerondal’s property at 14 Yambina Crescent has been a work in progress since the late 1970s, a period even they concede is ‘‘an excessive amount of time’’.

The couple, who have been afflicted by poor health and a lack of finances, have repeatedly ignored and then challenged or appealed orders from a range of tribunals, authorities and even the Supreme Court to clean up the site and finish the building work.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General and Planning Minister, Simon Corbell, said the territory government’s failure to resolve the 38-year-old matter was due to circumstances beyond its control.

‘‘The actions of the planning entities in the past have been challenged at every step by the lessees in the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the ACT Supreme Court,’’ she said.

‘‘It is highly unusual for a matter of this nature to be subjected to this level of appeal by a lessee [and] the costs to the territory have greatly exceeded the cost of undertaking the required works.’’

The government is currently testing the legal framework it intends to use to bring matters to a head.

A number of recent legal actions ‘‘have provided substantial case material that is being utilised in the action plan for the Waramanga site,’’ the spokeswoman said. ‘‘It is possible that when the documents are executed [on the Gerondals] the action may be appealed which may again result in extended litigation.’’

Monica Gerondal told Fairfax Media on Monday this would be the case. ‘‘You always have the right to appeal a bad decision,’’ she said.

The territory government, which has had to expend ‘‘significant time, effort and resources’’ representing itself in a range of forums in the past, is not the only party out of pocket.

When the Gerondals appealed to the Supreme Court in 2004 they represented themselves and lost the case.

The court ordered them to pay the government’s costs to defend the matter. These were initially calculated as $36,762.50 by the government solicitor.

Mr and Mrs Gerondal disputed the assessment and sought a detailed breakdown of the bill. The government then referred the file to a costing solicitor who revised the costs upwards to $51,113.10.

The Supreme Court reduced this to $42,011 but allowed the government to claim the cost of the review, an additional $7,258.38, from the Gerondals. This brought the total final assessment to $49,269.57.

By the time the Gerondals paid the bill, interest accrued at 11 per cent per annum had taken the amount owing up to $70,000 – almost twice the original assessment.

Speaking in 2007, the then minister for planning, Andrew Barr, told the ACT Assembly the Gerondals had made a rod for their own backs.

‘‘The lessees were fully informed when they lodged their application to the ACT Supreme Court for a review of the AAT’s decision (ordering that the site be cleaned up and the work be completed) that they were entering a cost jurisdiction,’’ he said.

‘‘Appeals on decisions of the Tribunal can only be made on a point of law. The decision that the lessees were contesting was one where the law was not ambiguous nor was the way the Authority had applied the law.’’

An attempt to have a contractor enter the Gerondal’s property to carry out the clean-up work mandated by the tribunal and court orders was scuttled by the lessees.

‘‘ACTPLA did commence the steps necessary to undertake action on the site which were again appealed in the AAT by the lessees,’’ the spokeswoman said. ‘‘At the completion of that lengthy process the lessees were again engaged in litigation in the ACT Supreme Court against the ACT government and (they) additionally made criminal allegations against ACTPLA. These allegations were investigated by ACT Policing, resulting in a discontinuance of that investigation.

‘‘Until the completion of both matters all further regulatory action by ACTPLA was put on hold.’’