Viability, Obligations and Commercial – Page 2

Making the original section 106 bind a section 73 permission

Section 73 creates a fresh permission alongside the original. Whether the planning obligations follow it is a question of how the agreement was drafted, and the fix is usually a supplemental deed.

Travel plan monitoring fees and default bonds

Monitoring fees and default bonds in a travel plan obligation are negotiable. Here is how to test the quantum, the trigger and the duration before completion.

Viability, Obligations and Commercial6 min read

Ground rents, service charges and the value input

Ground rent income has largely gone from new long leases, and service charges quietly reduce the sales values an appraisal rests on. Both sit on the value side and both are easy to get wrong.

Viability, Obligations and Commercial6 min read

Residual valuation against comparable land transactions

A residual appraisal works backwards from the finished scheme; comparables work from what land sold for. The gap between them is usually policy, and national guidance says which one wins.

Grant assumptions and registered provider bids

Whether a viability appraisal assumes grant changes the affordable housing offer. The additionality rule, how to brief registered providers and what the reviewer reads.

Viability, Obligations and Commercial8 min read

Contingency allowances and where reviewers push back

Reviewers rarely challenge whether a viability appraisal needs contingency. They challenge whether the same risk has been paid for twice, in profit, in abnormals or in the build rate.

Sales rates and absorption in a residual appraisal

Two appraisals of the same site can diverge sharply on absorption alone, because a slower sales programme extends the cashflow, raises peak debt and compounds finance cost.

Health and education contributions and how they are evidenced

Education contributions are arithmetic you can check: yield times cost per place, less spare capacity. Health requests often have no identified project, which is where regulation 122 bites.

Finance costs and the assumed debt structure in viability

Viability appraisals model finance rather than using the real facility. The rate, the fee schedule and the programme are the three assumptions a reviewer will test.

Town centre health checks and the indicators used

A health check is the baseline that impact, frontage and change of use arguments all rely on. The indicators matter less than whether they were measured consistently.

Estate management charges secured by planning obligation

The annual estate charge on a new development usually traces back to a planning obligation signed before the first brick. Here is how the arrangements are built, what they bind, and what to ask before exchange.

Regulation 55 relief from the infrastructure levy

Relief from the Community Infrastructure Levy under regulation 55 is real but narrow. Here are the gateways, the three tests, the evidence needed and the routes that usually serve better.

Payment in kind and land payments under the levy

You can satisfy a levy liability with land or infrastructure, but only if the authority has said it will accept them and the agreement is completed before work starts.

Section 73 permissions and CIL recalculation

Varying a condition creates a new permission, a new liability notice and a new set of exemption claims. Where the levy is abated, and where it is lost.

Local labour and apprenticeship clauses in section 106

Employment and skills clauses are easy to agree and hard to deliver. The drafting choices that matter are the target basis, the default payment and who reports.

Carbon offset payments and shortfall contributions

An offset payment is the price of the carbon you did not save on site. Getting the calculation and the clause right is worth more than arguing about the rate.

Nutrient mitigation contributions and how they are secured

A nutrient mitigation contribution has to be secured before the authority can conclude no adverse effect. That makes the section 106 the critical path, not the ecology.

Mortgagee exclusion clauses in a planning obligation

Lenders will not fund land burdened with obligations they cannot perform. How the exclusion works, why possession rather than ownership is the trigger, and the controlled process authorities accept.

Indexation clauses in planning obligations

Indexation is agreed without argument and disputed at payment. The four drafting defects that cause it, and the five-step check to run before transferring a contribution.

Land value expectations and viability circularity in plans

Policy requirements are set on policy-compliant land value assumptions, but land bought under the previous plan keeps arriving for years afterwards. How that lag plays out in viability evidence.

The three statutory tests for a planning obligation

The three tests in regulation 122 are statutory restrictions rather than policy to be weighed. Agreeing to an unnecessary contribution does not cure the failure, and an inspector will apply the tests directly.

Pooling restrictions and how obligations are now structured

Section 106 contributions are no longer capped by number and regulation 123 lists have gone. What remains is regulation 122: necessary, directly related, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind.

Section 278 and section 38 against section 106

A major scheme usually needs all three instruments. The difference that matters to a developer is which carries the bond, which carries the fees and which sits on the critical path.

Levy liability notices, notices to start and surcharges

The Community Infrastructure Levy runs on a fixed sequence of notices. Assuming liability and serving the commencement notice both happen before a spade goes in, and self-build exemptions depend on it.