All three of the following conditions must be fulfilled before the transaction is eligible for relief.
The first condition is that the planning obligation must be
enforceable against the vendor.
This means that there must be a planning obligation in place
against the vendor before the transaction is effected. Additionally
that planning obligation must be capable of being enforced, whether
through the courts or by other means. It does not matter that no
action has been taken to enforce the planning order, it must just
be capable of being enforced.
The second condition is that the purchaser is a public authority. There are lists of these
HM Treasury also has the power to prescribe additional persons for the purposes of this section by Treasury order.
The final condition is that the transaction takes place within
five years of the date the planning obligation was entered into or
modified.
It is the latest of these dates from which the time period
runs.
For example, if the planning obligation was entered into on 1
March 2004 and subsequently modified on 20 September 2007 and
modified again on 25 June 2008 and then became the subject of a
compulsory purchase order, the transaction must take place by 24
June 2013 at the latest. This is the last date which is within the
period of five years commencing with the date of the last
modification (that is 5 years from 25 June 2008).
