A COUPLE have been charged £38,000 by their council after missing an email while building their dream home.
Ruth Pitt and her husband began building a downsized home in 2020, but the week they received planning permission coincided with a series of devastating events.
Mr Pitt was diagnosed with dementia and, at the same time, she missed an email stating she needed to inform the district council when they had started their build.
She then received a demand for £38,000 for getting the paperwork wrong and threatened with seizure or prison if she did not pay.
Mrs Pitt told the BBC: “I actually couldn’t believe it when I opened the email – it made me feel physically sick.
“We were already under pressure to keep our project under budget and then we get this huge demand out of the blue with very draconian measures to collect it.
“If I’d committed some sort of serious crime or had a misdemeanour, I could appeal against that but I cannot appeal against the CIL – they will not allow an appeal.”
A Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a charge that local authorities can impose on new developments in their area.
The CIL applies to all proposals that add 100m squared of new floorspace or an extra dwelling.
The amount paid is the increase in floorspace per metre-squared multiplied by the rate in the CIL charging schedule.
Horsham District Council said: “We can’t comment on individual cases but its important to recognise the council must consider any CIL matters in accordance with national legislation.
“There are areas of the legislation where the council has no discretion to make a different decision if due process wasn’t followed.”
Leader of the Council, Martin Boffey added: “In the light of recent queries about our process we will revisit our CIL procedure to see if there are any areas where we can make improvements.
“I sympathise with people both locally and nationally who must suffer a huge shock when they receive large CIL bills that they are not expecting.
“At present, the Council’s hands are tied to a large extent by national legislation, so I am keen to work with our MPs to get changes made to the law to prevent these issues arising in future.”
The issue comes after the leader of West Berkshire Council Jeff Brooks said he reimbursed a couple who were accidentally charged by the local authority.
He dubbed CIL charges for homeowners across the UK “a national scandal”, adding that HDC is in the “wrong”.
Mr Brooks said he has emailed Martin Boffey, the leader of HDC, and offered to show him how they paid people back.
It comes after a retired couple from Godalming were given a £70,000 CIL charge after they replaced an existing house extension.
Independent planning consultant Alex Bateman said the complicated exemption process is “tripping a lot of people up”.
Meanwhile, homeowners in one street say they’ve been threatened with fines for parking outside their own homes.
Residents in a Southampton estate say they are at risk of being hit with penalties after their council painted double yellow lines right outside their properties.
