A watchdog has criticised Hackney Council for raising and then dashing the hopes of a developer who refused to accept he did not have planning consent for a plot of land.
The man, known only as Mr Z, was locked in a planning dispute with the council for two years. During that time, the local authority warned him a total of seven times that his application was void and that he needed to submit a new one.
He refused, and later complained to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) about the council delaying its final decision on the bid, as well as the £3,000 cost he incurred from paying for services he did not need.
Dispute over self-build exemption
The wrangling revolved around Mr Z's purchase of land from a previous owner, who had applied to build their own property on it. Because it was a self-build project, the application requested an exemption from Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) payments, which in this case were valued at around £50,000.
Under the law, self-build exemptions from CIL require the applicant to own and live in the property for at least three years after it has been built.
Mr Z mistakenly believed the site had planning permission when he bought the land, and that he could also be exempt from CIL for his own planning bid. In fact, the council never made a decision on the original bid, a detail that appears to have escaped Mr Z and his conveyancers.
Council's flawed legal advice
However, the watchdog blamed the council's legal team for incorrectly advising him that he could simply update the file by changing the name. In reality, the specific self-build status no longer applied, nor did any CIL exemption.
After taking this mistaken advice from council officers, Mr Z moved ahead with his own planning application by simply updating the name on the original file. He then paid the council more than £3,000 for a viability assessment, believing the application was moving ahead. The Town Hall told him after this that he would have to pay the £50,000 levy. His agent challenged this finding.
During this time, the council repeatedly encouraged the developer to withdraw the invalid application and submit a fresh one. The council issued this advice seven times in total, but Mr Z refused.
Complaint and ombudsman ruling
After the developer formally complained to the council in July 2025, town hall officials responded - following a 43-day delay - again stating that the self-build bid was invalid. The applicant then escalated the case to the Ombudsman.
Over six months later, in March 2026, the council officially refused the planning application.
The watchdog criticised the council for “raising [Mr Z's] expectations” through its flawed legal advice, slow decision-making and poor complaint handling. The council, the Ombudsman said, had made several blunders that led the developer to believe the application could proceed. The council accepted the error and agreed to apologise to Mr Z.
However, the watchdog concluded that the council did not owe the man any money. Mr Z had asked for the council to reimburse him for the unnecessary viability assessment he paid for. The Ombudsman judged that the applicant would have spent the money anyway “because the agent repeatedly did not withdraw the application and Mr Z paid to progress the application”.
