northlincs.gov.uk

51  (51) REVIEW OF POLICY AND RESOURCES FEES AND CHARGES – INCLUDING REVIEW OF LOCAL LAND CHARGES SERVICE PERFORMANCE – The Director of Policy and Resources submitted an urgent report seeking to review and revise charges made by services within the Policy and Resources portfolio for the 2016/17 financial year, and also to review the performance of the Local Land Charges Services.

The matter was urgent in order to ensure that the revised fees and charges were in place by 1 April 2016 and due notice of the local land charges fees could be given to private solicitors and the National Land Information Services (NLIS).

Local Land Charges

During the calendar year, 1907 Official “in house” Searches had been received.  The total for the whole of the same period in 2014 was 1839.  The slight increase in the number of searches undertaken in the last calendar year continued to demonstrate an increase when compared with previous years.

The report gave details of current and proposed fees for postal and electronic searches (NLIS).

Legal Discretionary Fees

As in previous years a review had been undertaken of the charges made by Legal Services following the report received from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Benchmarking Club.  The proposed charges were set out in Appendix 1 to the report.

The report detailed other chargeable services within the Policy and Resources directorate, proposed fees and charges were set out in Table E in Appendix 1 to the report.

Resolved – (a) That Option 1, for both the local land charges fees and the legal fees, set out in Tables A to D in Appendix 1, be approved with effect from 1 April 2016, and (b) that the other Policy and Resources fees and charges for 2016-17, as set out in Table E in Appendix 1 to the report, be approved.