Applicants trying to avoid CIL. - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Open group
|
Started - July 2012
|
Last activity - Today
Applicants trying to avoid CIL.
Glen Beaumont, modified 10 Years ago.
Applicants trying to avoid CIL.
New Member Posts: 2 Join Date: 20/10/11 Recent Posts
0
An application has been submitted that currently seeks consent for a two storey outbuilding at a residential property. The application appears to be acceptable but in order to avoid the trigger for CIL, the applicant has indicated that he may submit amended plans that show the building with a ground-floor floor level only with a void above where the first-floor floor level would have been. At some point in the future when the shell of the building has been constructed (including the first floor windows) and the ground floor is in use, the first-floor floor level may be then inserted. If the first-floor floor level remains as part of the application, it will trigger payment of CIL. Despite the building looking like a two storey building from the outside, if the applicant omits the first-floor floor level as part of the appliction and constructs it after the building has been built and occupied, will the development be CIL liable?
CIL is only payable on what planning permission is granted for, or on what is carried out under a general consent. You can not add the two together in order to reach the CIL threshold. In the case you have outlined, the insertion of of a new floor into an existing building without any external changes what not be development at all. Could you find grounds for refusal along the lines of the building having excessive bulk for a single storey building? No doubt we are all going to be faced with creative schemes for CIL avoidance!
It will always be the case that people behave bizarrely and think they are very clever - it will probably end up costing them more in the long run and so much more hassle. If they poceed with the development in such a way that they succeed in avoiding the tax - so be it.
As Tony points out, the application mentioned by Glen doesn't currently avoid CIL. However, I suggest there is nothing whatsoever wrong with an applicant structuring an application to avoid or minimise CIL, indeed we are in discussion with clients on how this might be achieved (although the opportunities to do so are quite limited). In some ways there is a parallel with taxation - tax avoidance is legal and commonplace, whereas tax evasion is more rare and a crime.