Summary: Mr and Mrs X complain fault by the Council means they have incurred a CIL liability. We will not investigate the complaint because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainants, who I refer to as Mr and Mrs X, complain the Council failed to grant approval for their planning application prior to the CIL implementation date. They say they would never have agreed to the time extensions for determining their planning application, agreed by their agent, if they had known they would be liable for CIL.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainants and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. I gave the complainants the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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My assessment

6. In 2019, a few days after the implementation date of CIL (the Community Infrastructure Levy charge which local authorities can levy on new development in their area) the Council granted outline planning permission for Mr and Mrs X’s application.
7. In 2020, when the reserved matters application for the development was approved, the Council told Mr and Mrs X that they were liable for CIL. They complained to the Council that this was unfair because neither they, nor their agent who had agreed to allow the Council time extensions to determine the 2019 application, had been aware that CIL would be levied from 1 June 2019.
8. The Council addressed their complaint under its complaints procedures and explained that the onus was not on the Council to have informed applicants of potential CIL liability and that instead this fell on the developer/agent. It said that information about the introduction of CIL had been in the public domain before the submission of their outline application and that it had no discretion to waive it once it had been incurred.
9. While it is unfortunate that neither Mr and Mrs X, nor their agent, knew at the time of the outline application about the impending introduction of the CIL, there is no evidence to suggest fault by the Council led to their liability for it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman