Decision details

(Item FIP 17/5 referred from Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board minutes of 4 January 2017)

Consideration of recommendations to the Cabinet from the Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board of 4 January 2017.

The Cabinet resolved that:

The recommendations of the Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board be approved as follows:

(1)         in respect of the recovery of legal fees payable by third parties, the Council’s fees continue to follow the Supreme Court guideline hourly rates as set out at paragraph 1.2.1 of the report;

(2)         the proposed scale of fees for local land charges searches and enquiries set out in the report be adopted with effect from 1 April 2017, noting that property search fees are to be subject to VAT as shown in the table at Annex 1 to the report from 1 January 2017 unless HMRC confirms that any element shown as Vatable should not be subject to VAT;

(3)         the current photocopying charges of 10p (inclusive of VAT) for each page of the same document or additional copies of the same page plus postage as appropriate be retained;

(4)         the proposed charges for Tonbridge Castle Chamber as set out in Annex 4 to the report be approved for implementation from 1 April 2017;

(5)         the proposed charges for weddings at Tonbridge Castle as outlined in paragraph 1.6.3 of the report be approved for implementation from 1 April 2018;

(6)         the fees schedule for street naming and numbering set out in section 1.8 of the report be adopted with effect from 1 April 2017; and

(7)         the amount of council tax and business rate Court costs recharged remain as set out at paragraph 1.9.2 of the report for the 2017/18 financial year.

[Councillor N Heslop declared an Other Significant Interest in item (4) on the grounds of membership of the Board of the Bridge Trust.  He withdrew from the meeting during its consideration and Councillor Coffin took the chair.]