If you own land or buildings on the route of a proposed road or railway, you may well get a CPO in due course - that is to be expected.
Less well known is that if a private developer is trying to put together a huge scheme that is favoured by the Local Authority and you hold out and refuse to sell, you could find yourself the subject of a CPO. Local Authorities don't like doing this but they can and they might so don't be too greedy.
In my experience (I have had at least four CPOs - probably more) you will come out of it OK but there are things to consider.
If the organisation concerned take even a small part of your land you may well be able to force them to take all of it (take specialist advice).
It is possible that if you try to be "clever" they will divert the route and leave you stranded - organisations are run by people, not robots and if you annoy them enough it might get personal - so, again, be friendly, helpful and professional rather than bloody minded and greedy.
If your position is greatly improved by the new scheme your Rateble Value may increase but there is no "improvement tax" (unlike in parts of Spain where the Local Authority can turn up one day, take half your land and charge you Euros100,000 tax because this area is now differently zoned so you are "better off" as a result)
Conversely, if the new scheme means you lose half your turnover because there is no longer any passing trade, then hard luck - no compensation
Everbody knows that Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council (the GLC). Less well known is that she also abolished the Greater Manchester Council and the Greater Yorkshire Council ( probably not the correct name but we will call it the GYC for convenience) and a few others too probably.
As a result, they were forced to dispose of all of the property they had acquired - much of it for new road schemes. Some councils did this at auction and others by tender. The GYC adopted the latter course and I tendered £40,000 for a piece of land by the side of a road in Bingley. I was successful and a year or so later the Local Authority issued me with a CPO to buy it back for a new road scheme. I know, I know.
We were unable to agree a price and eventually it arrived in a court with a judge and two counsel, one representing me and the other representing the GYC. My counsel stood up and made the case that were it not for the new road scheme, the land could have been developed as a garage and a tyre depot and was therefore worth £140,000.
Then the counsel for the GYC stood up and did his bit and the judge duly retired to consider his verdict.
When the judge came back he quite rightly decided that I was entitled to £140,000.
At this point my counsel turned to me and the conversation went as follows:
My Counsel: I thought young Jeremy did a pretty good job
Me: Young Jeremy? Who is young Jeremy?
My Counsel: The Counsel for the GYC. He's my pupil, you know. We're off to lunch now. Toodle Loo!
Whether the GYC felt young Jeremy had done a pretty good job I never found out but my reaction to all this was not "I have just made £100,000" it was "so who is going to buy me lunch, then?"
Bob Cory
Modified on 16/09/2019 at 09:26:57 by ℗ Bob Cory