Challenging a CIL liability notice calculation

A liability notice tells you what the collecting authority thinks your development owes under the Community Infrastructure Levy, and it arrives shortly after planning permission is granted. It is a calculation, and calculations contain errors. The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 give you a review and an appeal, both on short deadlines, and both of which vanish once work starts on site.

Diary the dates the day the notice arrives. Then check the arithmetic before you check anything else.

What the notice contains

A liability notice sets out the chargeable amount, the planning permission it relates to, the person or people liable if liability has been assumed, and how the figure was reached. The calculation should show the rate applied, the chargeable area used, and the indexation.

The chargeable amount is broadly the adopted rate for the relevant zone and use, multiplied by the net chargeable floor area, adjusted by the index for the year the charging schedule took effect and the year permission was granted. Each of those four inputs is a place an error can enter.

A liability notice can be revised and reissued. A revised notice restarts the clock, which matters if the first one was wrong in your favour and the second one is not.

Checking the chargeable area

This is where most successful challenges live.

Measure the proposed gross internal area yourself against the approved drawings and compare it with the figure used. Then check the deduction for existing buildings. Floorspace in a building that has been in lawful use for a continuous period of at least six months within the relevant window before permission is deductible, and authorities sometimes apply that test wrongly or ignore evidence of use that was provided late.

Look for areas that should not be counted, and for areas counted twice. Mezzanines, plant enclosures, voids and open sided structures all produce disputes. Where a building is being demolished and replaced, confirm that the demolition floorspace has actually been deducted rather than just mentioned.

Pull together the evidence of lawful use now, not later. Business rates records, utility bills, leases, photographs and employment records are what persuade an authority that a building was in use for the relevant period.

Requesting a review

The first step is a request to the collecting authority for a review of the chargeable amount, made within 28 days of the liability notice being issued. It must be made by a person liable, in writing, and it should state precisely which input is wrong and what the correct figure is.

Keep it short and arithmetic. A review request that argues the levy is unfair invites a one line refusal. One that says the chargeable area should be 412 square metres rather than 498 because the existing workshop qualified for deduction, with the evidence attached, gets read properly.

The authority reviews the calculation and notifies its decision within the period set by the regulations. A successful review produces a revised liability notice.

Appealing to the valuation office

If the review does not resolve it, an appeal lies to an appointed person at the valuation office on the ground that the chargeable amount has been calculated incorrectly. The appeal must be made within 60 days of the liability notice, and a review must have been requested first.

Separate appeal routes deal with apportionment of liability between owners, charitable relief, exemptions for residential annexes and self build housing, surcharges, the deemed date of commencement, and stop notices. Each has its own ground and its own deadline, so identify which one applies rather than filing a general objection.

The appointed person deals with the papers. Submit the notice, the review correspondence, the approved drawings, your own measurement, and the evidence supporting any deduction. Organise it so the arithmetic can be followed without reconstructing it.

Grounds that succeed and grounds that do not

Succeed: a rate from the wrong zone or the wrong use category, the wrong index year, a measurement error, a deduction for lawful existing floorspace refused on a mistaken view of the evidence, an exemption or relief that was granted and then not applied.

Do not succeed: the rates in the charging schedule are too high, the development is not viable at that charge, the infrastructure the levy funds is not needed locally, or the money will not be spent near the site. Those are arguments about the charging schedule, which was examined and adopted through a separate statutory process and cannot be reopened through a liability notice appeal.

Paying while you argue

There is no statutory protest mechanism. Payment becomes due after the demand notice, which follows the commencement notice, and late payment attracts surcharges and interest that compound quickly.

On a modest disputed sum the sensible course is often to pay on time and pursue the review, because a successful outcome produces a revised notice and a refund of the overpayment. On a large disputed sum, resolve the dispute before starting work, since starting work is what closes off the appeal.

For self builders the sequence is unforgiving. The exemption has to be claimed and granted before development starts. A commencement notice has to be submitted before work begins. The supporting evidence has to follow within the period the regulations specify. Miss any of those and the full charge becomes payable with no discretion to forgive it, whatever the merits. Treat the forms as a critical path item alongside the building control notice, and check the instalment policy and its effect on cash flow before you fix a start date.

After a review

A revised liability notice is issued showing the corrected amount, and it supersedes the earlier one. Check it with the same care as the first, because corrections sometimes fix one input and disturb another.

Watch the interaction with any later application. A section 73 permission for the same scheme generates its own liability calculation, and the regulations deal with how the earlier charge is credited. Applicants who vary a permission after paying often assume the charge simply carries across. It does not always, and the arithmetic is worth checking before the variation is submitted rather than after the new notice arrives.

One practical warning about timing. The liability notice is issued after permission, and the 28 day and 60 day windows run from its date rather than from the day you opened the envelope. Notices go to the applicant address held on the application form, which on a self build project is often the agent who has since finished their engagement. Tell the authority where notices should go, and check the planning register if nothing has arrived within a few weeks of the decision.

Keep the whole file. The liability notice, the review, the revised notice and the payment receipts are all documents a purchaser's solicitor will ask for, and they sit alongside any section 106 compliance evidence in the sale pack.

PlanScope drafts the planning documents that support an application, and you can enter a postcode on the home page to see which ones a project is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice, so check the position with your collecting authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.