Section 106
Repayment rights, permitted use, contractual triggers
Section 106 · CIL · Highway agreements · Bonds
You committed the money.Some of it should come back.
We identify money that property developers may be entitled to recover from historic and current developments. Your first portfolio audit is free. If we identify and pursue a recovery, you only pay if we succeed.
Free initial portfolio audit
Fee taken from the recovery, not your budget
A trading style of Abbelys Solicitors
£9bn
Sitting unspent
Could some of it belong to you?
Developer contributions held across England and Wales, waiting to be spent within the time the agreements allow, or repaid to the developers who paid them.
£6.6bn
Section 106
£2.2bn
CIL
£3bn
Unspent for 5+ years
£19m
Average held per council
Figures from the Home Builders Federation’s March 2026 Freedom of Information research covering 243 local authorities in England and Wales.
What contributions build
Roads, open space and play areas, funded up front through Section 106 and CIL.
CIL
Calculation, indexation, relief, exemption, procedure
Highway agreements
S38 and S278 works, certification, adoption
Bonds & monitoring
Retained bonds, defects periods, release milestones
The market problem
The file nobody reopens
Developers commit substantial sums through planning obligations. Once a scheme progresses, attention moves to delivery and the next site. Historic obligations are rarely put through a specialist, independent post-completion review.
Section 106
Contributions never spent as agreed
Repayment rights, permitted-use restrictions and contractual milestones can go unmonitored for years after the money has left your account.
Community Infrastructure Levy
Charges calculated on the wrong basis
Calculation, indexation, relief, exemption and procedural issues can create financial exposure — or mean you paid more than was properly due.
Highways & bonds
Capital tied up long after completion
Adoption delays, retained bonds and outstanding certification keep security in place well beyond the point most schemes have moved on.
Portfolio visibility
No single view across sites
The information sits with project teams, external advisers, archived files and a different local authority for every scheme.
The gap: most developers have no one whose job it is, continuously, to identify recoveries and monitor planning-obligation risk.
The visibility gap
Why no one has told you
Nothing in the system prompts a repayment. The obligation sits in a deed nobody rereads once the site is sold. Councils have been required since 2019 to publish an Infrastructure Funding Statement each year by 31 December, showing what they have received, spent and still hold, so the balances are already a matter of public record. But compliance has fallen from 90% to 75%, the statements are not written for the people who paid, and nobody is cross-checking them against your agreements. That is the work.
Where money sits
Four points in a scheme where capital gets left behind
Every scheme runs the same arc, and money can be left behind at each turn. These are the four stages the audit works through.
What is committed
- A Section 106 agreement fixing sums, triggers and permitted uses
- A CIL liability notice, with any relief or exemption claimed
- Highway works agreed under Section 38 or Section 278
- Bond or security arrangements sized to the works
Worth checking
- Whether the agreement contains a repayment or clawback clause
- Whether the CIL calculation used the correct floorspace and indexation
- Whether relief or exemption was claimed in time and on the right basis
- Whether the bond figure reflects the works actually scoped
What is committed
- CIL demand notice issued and payment made under the instalment policy
- First tranche contributions paid on commencement triggers
- Bonds executed and security formally lodged
- Commencement notices served on the authority
Worth checking
- Whether indexation was applied to the correct index and base date
- Whether surcharges were properly imposed, or applied in error
- Whether payments were made earlier than the trigger required
- Whether a phased liability could have reduced the sum payable
What is committed
- Contributions falling due on occupation or phase triggers
- Off-site works delivered under the highway agreement
- Variations and deeds of modification as the scheme changes
- Ongoing bond and security costs
Worth checking
- Whether a variation reduced or removed an obligation already paid
- Whether triggers were met by the authority as well as by you
- Whether sums were paid against units that were never built
- Whether the scheme as delivered still matches what was charged for
What is committed
- Contributions sitting with the authority, allocated or otherwise
- Bonds retained through the defects and maintenance period
- Roads and drainage awaiting formal adoption
- Files closed, teams moved to the next site
Worth checking
- Whether contributions were spent within the period the agreement allows
- Whether they were spent on the purpose the agreement specifies
- Whether a repayment right has been triggered and not claimed
- Whether bonds should have been released or reduced by now
These are the categories we review. Whether anything is recoverable on a particular scheme depends on the agreement, the evidence, limitation and the facts — which is exactly what the free audit is for.
Services
Four ways we look at a portfolio
How the service works
Surveyors and solicitors, on one instruction
Recovery work usually stalls because the technical evidence and the legal claim sit with different firms. Here they don’t.
Client facing
Developer Recovery
We coordinate the audit, identify potential opportunities and manage the matter from first review through to recovery.
Regulated legal practice
Abbelys Solicitors
Developer Recovery is a trading style of Abbelys Solicitors. Legal advice, case assessment and accepted claims are handled through the regulated practice.
Specialist surveys
Corelain
Corelain carries out the specialist surveys and supporting technical assessment used to identify and evidence recovery opportunities.
One coordinated instruction: specialist survey work, legal assessment and recovery strategy — without you managing three relationships.
How it works →Complimentary portfolio audit
Every relationship starts with a free audit
The initial audit establishes whether your historic or current portfolio contains matters that justify deeper investigation. It is confidential, and there is no charge for this first-stage review.
What we review
- Section 106 agreements and variations
- CIL notices, calculations and reliefs
- Highway agreements, bonds and adoption status
- Relevant planning and financial records
What we look for
- Potential repayment rights
- Unspent or potentially misapplied contributions
- Calculation or procedural issues
- Delayed bond releases and contractual entitlements
What happens next
- Potential matter identified
- Corelain survey or assessment where required
- Legal merits reviewed
- Recovery strategy agreed with you
No viable claim identified? You pay nothing, and the review stays confidential.
Request your audit →Fees
You pay from what we recover, not from your budget
The initial portfolio audit is free. If we go on to pursue a claim and it does not succeed, there is no recovery fee. If it does succeed, our fee is deducted from the sum recovered before it reaches you.
Stage one
Initial portfolio audit
No charge, and no obligation to instruct us afterwards.
Stage two
Recovery
A success fee of 35% of the sum recovered, plus VAT, deducted from the recovery itself. Nothing to pay if the claim does not succeed.
Optional
Portfolio monitoring
A fixed monthly retainer, scoped to portfolio size. Entirely optional.
Because the fee comes out of the recovery, it is taken from money that was not on your balance sheet before we started — sums already paid over and, in most cases, written off internally years ago. Every claim is subject to legal merits, evidence, limitation and formal case acceptance. Precise terms, including the basis of the fee, VAT treatment and how any disbursements are handled, are set out in the client engagement documentation and agreed with you in writing before any recovery work begins.
Worked examples
What these claims look like
Two illustrative scenarios. Neither is a record of a specific client matter — they are constructed to show how the entitlement arises and why it goes unnoticed.
Section 106 · unspent at term
Education contribution never applied
The scheme
180-unit residential scheme, North West. A £480,000 education contribution was paid on first occupation in 2016. The agreement required the authority to apply it towards expansion of a named primary school within five years of receipt, and provided that any unspent balance became repayable on demand after that date.
What the review found
The expansion did not proceed. At the fifth anniversary £310,000 remained unspent, and the repayment provision had been triggered. No demand had been made, because nobody on the developer side was tracking the date.
Contribution paid
£480,000
Unspent at term
£310,000
Illustrative scenario, not a record of a specific client matter.
Section 106 · misapplied funds
Open space money spent on something else
The scheme
Mixed-use scheme, Midlands. A £220,000 contribution was expressed to be for the provision and initial maintenance of a named area of public open space serving the development.
What the review found
A review of the authority’s own capital expenditure records showed the sum had been absorbed into general highway maintenance elsewhere in the borough. Spending outside the permitted purpose the agreement defines is a breach of the covenant, and the claim does not depend on any spend period having expired — it arises from the misapplication itself.
Contribution paid
£220,000
Applied as agreed
£0
Illustrative scenario, not a record of a specific client matter.
A third example covers a Section 38 bond held four years past the end of the maintenance period.
See all examples →Interest
A recovery is the money, plus the time it was held
On a contribution paid years ago, interest is frequently the larger half of the claim. How it is calculated — and whether it compounds — makes a material difference, so it is worth understanding the difference before anyone quotes you a figure.
Simple interest
Charged on the original sum only. The same amount is added every year, and accrued interest never itself earns interest. A contribution of £250,000 at 5% simple earns £12,500 a year, every year, regardless of how long it runs.
Compound interest
Interest is added to the balance at the end of each period, and the next period’s interest is charged on that larger balance. The same £250,000 at 5% compounded annually earns £12,500 in year one, £13,125 in year two, and £17,589 in year eight — because by then interest is running on £351,775 rather than £250,000.
The gap widens with time, which is exactly why it matters on historic obligations. Over eight years it is worth around £19,000 on a single contribution of this size. Across a portfolio of schemes, the compounding basis can be the difference that makes a claim worth bringing.
| £250,000 held for eight years at 5% | Simple | Compound | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | £262,500 | £262,500 | £0 |
| Year 2 | £275,000 | £275,625 | £625 |
| Year 3 | £287,500 | £289,406 | £1,906 |
| Year 4 | £300,000 | £303,877 | £3,877 |
| Year 5 | £312,500 | £319,070 | £6,570 |
| Year 6 | £325,000 | £335,024 | £10,024 |
| Year 7 | £337,500 | £351,775 | £14,275 |
| Year 8 | £350,000 | £369,364 | £19,364 |
Illustrative only. Figures are rounded, assume annual compounding and a constant 5% rate, and are used to show the mechanism — not to indicate the rate, period or outcome on any actual claim.
The basis matters — and it is not automatic
Where a right to interest actually comes from
- 1.The agreement itself. Many Section 106 agreements deal expressly with interest on sums that fall to be repaid, often at a stated margin over a named bank’s base rate. Where there is such a clause it governs, and whether it runs simple or compound is a question of how it is drafted. This is the first thing we look for.
- 2.Statutory interest in proceedings. If a claim is issued, the court has a discretion to award interest under section 35A of the Senior Courts Act 1981 or section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984. That jurisdiction is for simple interest.
- 3.Compound interest beyond those routes is not a given. Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Prudential Assurance v HMRC in 2018, there is no general common law entitlement to compound interest as restitution for the use of money. It remains available in defined situations — most obviously where the contract provides for it, and in equity in cases such as breach of fiduciary duty. Any claim advanced on a compound basis therefore has to be grounded in the drafting or the particular facts, not assumed.
Which basis applies to your schemes depends on the wording of each agreement. Establishing that is part of the free audit, and we will tell you plainly where interest runs simple.
Ongoing portfolio service
Continuous oversight after the first audit
Once the audit is done, you can retain us to carry the planning-obligation and infrastructure monitoring across the portfolio — a fixed monthly fee, scoped to portfolio size, separate from any recovery.
01
Live portfolio register
Central oversight of developments, agreements, payments, bonds, deadlines and current status.
02
Section 106 monitoring
Tracking contractual milestones, repayment dates, variations and potential recovery events.
03
CIL oversight
Monitoring notices, calculations, indexation, reliefs, commencement requirements and procedural risk.
04
Highway agreement tracking
Oversight of bonds, certification, adoption, defects periods and release milestones.
05
Regular portfolio reviews
Prioritised reporting on actions, upcoming deadlines and matters requiring escalation.
06
Annual recovery review
A structured re-review of the portfolio to identify new or matured recovery opportunities.
Recovery stays separate. If the retainer surfaces a claim, the success fee applies only if that claim succeeds.
About monitoring →Client journey
From audit to recovery
01
Enquire
A confidential conversation about your portfolio. No documents needed to start — just a sense of the sites and the years involved.
02
Free audit
We review the agreements, notices and records to establish whether anything justifies deeper investigation. No charge, no obligation to proceed.
03
Survey
Where a matter needs technical evidence, Corelain carries out the specialist survey and assessment work to support it.
04
Legal review
Abbelys Solicitors assesses merits, evidence and limitation, and confirms whether the claim is formally accepted.
05
Recovery
We pursue the claim and keep you updated. Our fee is deducted from what is recovered — and only if it is recovered.
FAQs
Common questions
How far back can we look?
It depends on the obligation and the type of claim, because different routes carry different limitation periods. Schemes completed some years ago are often still worth reviewing, particularly where contributions were paid and the agreement set a period within which the authority had to spend them. Part of the audit is establishing where limitation stands.
What do you need from us to run the audit?
Ideally the Section 106 agreements and any variations, CIL liability and demand notices, highway agreements and bond documentation, and a record of what was paid and when. If parts of that are missing or archived, we can often work from planning references and reconstruct the rest.
Will this damage our relationship with the local authority?
It’s a fair concern, and it shapes how we work. Most matters we pursue are about the correct application of an agreement or charge, and are resolved through correspondence rather than proceedings. Strategy is agreed with you before anything is sent, and you decide how far a matter goes.
How is your fee calculated?
The fee is 35% of the amount recovered, plus VAT, payable only on success. How it is calculated, when it becomes payable, and how any disbursements are treated are set out in full in the engagement documentation before recovery work starts.
Do we have to take the ongoing retainer?
No. The audit and any resulting recovery work stand on their own. The monthly retainer is for developers who want the monitoring handled continuously rather than revisiting it site by site.
Who actually holds the client relationship?
Developer Recovery is a trading style of Abbelys Solicitors, a regulated legal practice. Legal advice and accepted claims are handled through the practice, with the protections that come with instructing a firm of solicitors. Corelain provides the surveying and technical assessment work.
Book your free audit
Tell us about the portfolio
A short, confidential conversation is enough to tell whether a full review is worth your time. No charge for the first-stage audit, and no obligation to instruct us afterwards.