Section 106 recovery
Repayment rights, unspent and misapplied contributions
Read more →Highway agreements & bonds
Capital sitting behind roads that should have been adopted by now
Bonds are sized for risk that has usually long since passed. Where works are complete, defects periods have run and certification is outstanding for reasons that are not yours, that security should be coming back.
Free initial portfolio audit
Fee taken from the recovery, not your budget
A trading style of Abbelys Solicitors
Highway agreements & bonds
A bond is a cost, not a formality
A Section 38 or Section 278 bond ties up capital or costs a premium for as long as it stays in place. It is sized at the outset, against works that have not yet been built, and it is meant to reduce and be released as the works progress and are certified.
In practice, adoption stalls. Certification waits on an inspection, an inspection waits on a resourcing problem, and the bond quietly stays at full value for years after the road was finished.
What we see
- Bonds retained at full value after works were substantially complete
- Adoption delayed for reasons outside the developer’s control
- Certification outstanding where the works have in fact been signed off on site
- Defects and maintenance periods that expired without release following
- Commuted sums calculated on a basis worth revisiting
- Inspection and supervision fees charged beyond the agreed scope
Where the money usually is
Four ways security stays put
Bond release
Reduction that never happened
Most agreements contemplate the bond reducing as works are completed and certified. Where no one on the developer side is pressing for that reduction, it very often simply doesn’t occur.
Adoption delay
Finished road, unfinished paperwork
Where the delay to adoption sits with the authority rather than the works, the contractual and practical position on continuing to hold full security is worth putting formally.
Commuted sums
Priced for a maintenance liability
Commuted sums are calculated against assumptions about future maintenance. Where those assumptions do not match what was actually built and adopted, the figure is worth revisiting.
Fees and supervision
Charges beyond the agreed scope
Inspection, supervision and technical approval fees are charged against a defined scope. Extended programmes sometimes attract charges that the agreement does not in fact support.
The review
What the highways and bonds review covers
- Every Section 38 and Section 278 agreement and subsequent variation on the site
- The bond wording: value, reduction mechanism and release conditions
- Current bond status against works actually completed and certified
- The certification record and where each outstanding item genuinely sits
- Whether defects and maintenance periods have run and what should follow
- Commuted sum calculations and the assumptions behind them
- Inspection, supervision and technical approval fees charged to date
- The practical route to unlocking adoption, not only the legal one
Whether anything is recoverable on a particular scheme depends on the agreement, the evidence, limitation and the facts. Establishing that is exactly what the free audit is for.
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.
FAQs
Common questions
We don’t want to fall out with the highway authority mid-scheme.
Understood, and most of this work is not adversarial. A great deal of bond and adoption delay is a resourcing and record-keeping problem rather than a dispute, and a properly evidenced, well-directed letter resolves more of it than people expect.
The bond costs us a premium rather than tying up cash. Is it still worth it?
Usually yes. A premium on a bond that should have reduced two years ago is a recurring cost with nothing behind it, and across a portfolio of sites the annual figure is often larger than developers expect.
What if the works genuinely aren’t finished?
Then that is the answer, and we will tell you so. The audit is as much about closing off the questions as opening them — it is worth knowing which of your sites have a real issue and which don’t.
Can you deal with the technical inspection side?
Corelain carries out the specialist survey and technical assessment work where the position on site needs to be evidenced independently, with the legal side handled through Abbelys Solicitors.
Also worth reviewing
Other recovery areas
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.