Compulsory Purchase

Properties or land being bought up to make way for development.

assess the compensation that should be payable to the landowner when a property or land is to be bought up ‘compulsory purchased’ to make way for infrastructure schemes such as road widening or high speed rail links, town centre improvements or perhaps demolition and regeneration of a housing estate. Sometimes this is the whole property, sometimes a piece of garden. There are special provisions to claim hardship if the proposed acquisition of part of the land of a property would render the property materially different and unattractive for the owner to continue to own or live in.

Compulsory purchase refers to the process whereby the acquiring authority is granted a compulsory purchase order which is approved by the government. Compulsory purchase powers then enable the acquiring authority to put together a larger parcel of land by buying up smaller properties to enable a bigger scheme to go ahead.

Injurious Affection

Properties adversely affected (usually by infrastructure projects).

For properties adversely affected by infrastructure works (road/rail/aerodrome schemes).

Here the Chartered Valuation Surveyor’s job is to assess the diminution in value (amount by which a property is now worth less because of the ‘works’. For example, if you have a house in a country overlooking fields that is worth £x, at the bottom of your garden then it is likely that the property will be worth less due to the works. The HS2 high speed rail link must be built and this will bring properties' value down for lifetime, due to it.

For any compensation to be payable it has to be established that one of more physical factors exists, these include: noise, vibration, fumes and artificial lighting.

Usually the party carrying out the works will try to offer mitigation factors to reduce the amount of compensation that they might have to pay out, examples can be planting trees or physical high level fences to block out noise, using ‘quiet tarmac’ on roads to reduce noise, creating new banks and hills to shield properties.

The Valuer has to consider the impact of the scheme less the mitigation measures against the value of the property in the ‘no scheme world’. The difference in values is the diminution in value that the Valuer negotiates for the landowner.

Residential property acquisitions….

The Chartered Valuation Surveyor’s job is to assess.

1. the value of the property in a ‘no scheme world’, and
2. a 10% enhancement known as a ‘home loss payment’ which applies where the property to be acquired is the land owners home,
3. reasonable ‘disturbance costs’ – these are the costs of the acquisition being forced upon the current landowner. This heading will cover all the usual solicitors’ fees, valuation fees, removal costs, costs of modifying curtains and carpets for new premises, mail redirection costs. The Ringley Valuer will work very closely with you to predict all extra costs that are ‘reasonably foreseeable’ as a result of the imposed move.

IndeCommercial compulsory purchase situations….

The Chartered Valuation Surveyor’s job is to assess

1. the value of the interest held in the property by each party in a ‘no scheme world’, which can be the occupational lessee’s interest and the freeholders,
2. likely loss of goodwill – compensation for the fact that when a business moves to a new location this may hit profits in the short term if some customers loose touch, and
3. reasonable ‘disturbance costs’ – these are the costs of the acquisition being forced. This heading will cover all the usual solicitors’ fees, valuation fees, removal costs, costs of modifying display equipment, re-printing business stationery etc… The Ringley Valuer’s role will work very closely with you to predict all extra costs that are ‘reasonably foreseeable’ as a result of the imposed move.