Reading a CIL charging schedule and instalment policy

A CIL charging schedule is a short document with a long tail of consequences. It gives a rate in pounds per square metre for each use and each zone in the authority's area, it takes effect from a stated date, and the figure you actually pay is that rate indexed forward and applied to the net additional floorspace your permission creates. Reading it properly takes half an hour. Getting it wrong costs a self-builder the exemption they were entitled to.

The levy sits under the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010, made under the Planning Act 2008, and both have been amended repeatedly.

Finding the adopted schedule and checking its date

Charging authorities publish the adopted schedule on their own website, usually alongside the examiner's report, the infrastructure list and the instalment policy.

Three dates matter. The date the schedule was adopted, the date it took effect, and the date of any later revision. Indexation runs from the year the schedule took effect, so the effective date is the one that feeds the calculation.

Check whether the authority has adopted a levy at all. Not every charging authority has one, and some have rates set at nil across most of their area. Where there is no charging schedule, contributions are secured through section 106 obligations instead, which behave quite differently.

Download the version current at the date of your permission and keep it. Schedules are replaced, websites are restructured, and a calculation you cannot reproduce in two years is a calculation you cannot challenge.

Rates by use and by zone

A schedule sets rates by development type. Residential is usually charged, and the rate frequently varies by geographic zone within the authority, reflecting differences in land values tested at examination. Retail, student accommodation, hotels and care homes may carry their own rates. Most other commercial uses are often charged at nil.

Read the definitions rather than the headline. A schedule may define residential development in a way that excludes or includes particular forms, and the zone boundaries are set out on a map that forms part of the schedule.

Floorspace is measured as gross internal area. The chargeable amount is based on net additional floorspace, so existing buildings can be deducted, and that deduction is where most of the money is.

The deduction rule is precise. An existing building can be taken off the calculation where it has been in lawful use for a continuous period of at least six months within the three years before the permission first permits development. A building empty for years does not qualify, which has caught out many barn and outbuilding conversions.

Indexation and why the published rate is not the figure

The rate printed in the schedule is a base figure. The Regulations apply an index so that the charge tracks construction costs between the year the schedule took effect and the year permission is granted.

The practical effect is that a schedule adopted years ago can produce a liability noticeably higher than the printed rate suggests. Ask the charging authority for the index figures it will apply, or find them in its published guidance, and do the arithmetic before you rely on a number.

An illustrative calculation makes the shape of it clear. Take a single dwelling of 150 m² gross internal area on a plot with no existing building, in a zone charged at a rate of £100 per square metre. The base figure is 150 multiplied by 100, which is £15,000, and the actual liability is that amount adjusted by the ratio of the index for the year of permission to the index for the year the schedule took effect. The rate and the index values are illustrative, and the real ones come from the authority's published documents.

Instalment policies and payment timing

An instalment policy is separate from the charging schedule. It is published by the charging authority, it can be changed without a new examination, and it sets how the liability may be paid in stages.

Policies typically set thresholds, so a liability below a stated figure is payable in full, with larger liabilities split into two, three or more payments at defined intervals after commencement.

Two traps sit here, and both are procedural rather than financial.

The instalment policy applies only where the correct forms were submitted. Someone has to assume liability before development starts, and a commencement notice has to be served before the first day of development. Miss either and the whole amount usually becomes payable immediately, with surcharges on top.

And a commencement notice served late cannot be backdated. Starting work, then realising, then filing the paperwork is the sequence that produces the largest bills in this area of practice.

Exemptions and reliefs

The Regulations provide for several reliefs, each with its own claim procedure and its own clawback period.

• Self-build exemption for a whole dwelling built by or on behalf of the owner as their main residence, with a clawback if the property is sold or ceases to be the main residence within three years of completion.
• Residential annex and extension exemptions, claimed by the owner before commencement.
• Social housing relief and charitable relief.
• Exceptional circumstances relief, which only exists where the charging authority has chosen to offer it.

Every one of these has to be claimed and granted before development starts, and the self-build exemption also requires evidence to be supplied within a set period after completion. The exemption is lost if the commencement notice was not served first, regardless of the merits.

Self-builders should treat the CIL paperwork as part of the start-on-site checklist rather than as an administrative task to catch up on. The sums involved are large enough to affect whether a project is viable at all, which is the same reason development economics get tested formally through a Viability Assessment on larger schemes.

Recording the version you relied on

Write down, in one place, the information you will need if the demand notice does not match your expectation.

1. The charging schedule title, adoption date and effective date, with a saved copy.
2. The rate applied, the zone and the page it appears on.
3. The index values used and their source.
4. The floorspace calculation, showing gross internal area for the proposal and for any deducted building.
5. The lawful use evidence for the deducted building, with dates.
6. The instalment policy version and the payment dates it produces.
7. Copies of every form submitted, with dates of submission and acknowledgement.

That discipline is the same one that applies to every council dataset used in an application, whether it is housing land supply and delivery test figures or version control on the biodiversity metric. Record the version, record the date, keep the file.

One further point on the wider picture. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 contains powers for an Infrastructure Levy intended to replace the current system, with implementation staged. Check the current position before assuming the regime in your area has changed, because the levy described in an adopted charging schedule remains the one that applies until it does not.

See PlanScope pricing if you are weighing up the document costs alongside the levy when budgeting an application.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your charging authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.