Fees for confirmation of discharge of S106 obligations - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi,

We charge for these S106 compliance requests at Watford too (£15) and state "An administration fee is charged for some search services". 

I must admit that when I first read this, I agreed with your approach that this covenant doesn't mean it should be exempt from paying the fee but now i've re-read it quite a few times, I don't think you can charge.  In my opinion, this covenant overrides any standard fee.  Hopefully, it is not covenant that you have on all your agreements.  I just checked one of ours and we don't include anything like that.

Hope this helps, Carmel  

This is so random but I just came across this as I was doing some of my own research about monitoring fees.....  Link:  https://democracy.boston.gov.uk/documents/s11621/S106%20MONITORING%20FEES%20CHARGES.pdf 

3.2 Legal agreements typically state: ‘At the written request of the Owner the Council shall provide written confirmation of the discharge of the obligations contained in this Deed when satisfied such obligations have been performed, such confirmation shall not be unreasonably withheld or delayed.’

3.3 Based on this, the Council is obligated to confirm agreement to the Owner who is usually the developer, but not subsequent owners, such as those of individual properties or those resulting from future sales.

Thanks Carmel, that's very helpful. I'm discussing this with our legal dept so if I get a definitive answer I'll post back to this thread. 

We charge £116, but also try to have the S106 Discharges Notices available to view on the Online Planning Register free of charge and direct customers there first.

We use the Council's 'Prices for Council Services', which is reviewed alongside the budget as the mechanism for setting this type of charge.

P.S: Is there a definition of Owner?

Hi Louise

The owner is defined in the parties section at the head of the S106. It's the developer of the original permission. A further para states that:

"Reference to any party to this deed shall include the successors in title to that party and to any person deriving title though or under that party and in case of the Council the successors to their respective statutory functions."

However, a further para states that:

"The obligations in this deed shall not be enforceable against the purchasor or owner of a completed dwelling."

Which does make the solicitor's challenge a bit academic as the S106 obligation to provide affordable housing does not apply to their client, which they would see if they read the document. They already have the document as we provide copies of S106 agreements free of charge. 

I have received further advice from our legal dept, in summary the wording re confirmation of discharge of S106 obligations does not mention a fee but neither does it require the Council to provide the information free of charge. As confirmation of discharge is listed on the Council's website as a chargeable service then we can charge for it.

Hope that helps others. 

We charge a £109 Fee to confirm that S106 obligations have been met if the solicitor insists on a response from the council after we've first directed them to our Public Facing Planning website where the answer is usually freely available. 

We charge £308 for s106 compliance requests from solicitors of potential buyers (usually of indivudual dwellings). This fee was agreed many years ago in the Council's annual price list.

We don't charge the Owner of the whole site.  They usually automatically receive receipt letters confirming compliance/discharge of obligations however in some cases they do ask for this again years later.