Section 19 - Compliance notice: power to demand expenses
36.Section 19 provides a power to demand expenses where a compliance notice has been served under section 17.
37.Where a local authority serves a compliance notice on an owner of land, the local authority may impose a charge on the owner as a means of recovering the expenses incurred in deciding whether to serve the notice and in preparing and serving the notice or a demand for expenses. The charges could relate, for example, to the costs of obtaining legal advice in deciding whether or not to serve a compliance notice. Subsection (2) clarifies that the expenses are not limited to expert advice. The charges may include interest (see section 25).
38.A local authority exercises its power to recover expenses by issuing a demand, setting out the information about the charges specified in section 19(3)(a) to (c) when serving the compliance notice.
39.Where the tribunal allows an appeal against the underlying compliance notice (under section 17) it may also make an order about the expenses demand that accompanied the notice, for example to confirm or quash the charges.
