A 12-year legal battle over the use of a property in Wanaka, which has so far cost Queenstown Lakes district ratepayers more than $740,000 in legal fees, shows no sign of ending.
If the application is granted, Graham and her company could file another appeal against convictions and $64,000 in fines lodged under the Building Act.
Once notified, the council's legal representatives will have five working days to file its response.
The latest legal challenge by the Oxford University-educated anthropologist from Melbourne follows the High Court dismissal by Justice Graham Lang of her previous appeal. Justice Lang threw out her challenge in his decision on October 12 after another hearing on October 8. He said Graham did not succeed in formulating a question of law justifying leave to the appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Justice Lang said the appellants hoped the Court of Appeal would reach a different verdict applying the same test and based on the same facts, but the appeal attempt did not meet the requirement of raising any issue of public or general importance.
Graham was convicted and fined on five charges and her company was convicted and fined on nine charges, totalling $64,000, after a defended hearing in November and December 2009.
The criminal prosecution was brought by council solicitors in the Queenstown District Court from December 2008.
The council alleged Building Act violations during the conversion of the former gymnasium at 155 Tenby St, Wanaka, into residential accommodation for visitors.
The original building consent was lodged in 2000.
Graham maintained the living arrangement was a "single household unit", so the council should not have held the building to the fire safety standards of visitor accommodation and called for additional improvements to meet the code.
She also insisted in court the council officers waged a vendetta against her.
Graham declined to answer Otago Daily Times' questions this week, but accused the media of "bias" and maintained the council "terrorised" her and her tenants.
The council said, in response to an inquiry by the ODT, it had spent $742,001.96, including GST, on the case.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Vanessa van Uden told the ODT, she and councillors were well aware of the high legal cost and did not like it, but the council did not have a choice.
"We have a role to fulfil on behalf of this community and the visitors to this community to make sure where they might be staying or sleeping or living or visiting is safe," Ms van Uden said.
"We don't have the discretion to say, 'We've reached $200,000, we've got to stop now'. There's been regular updates and constant exploration of other alternatives, but there aren't."
