Our building coordinator emailed us yesterday to inform us that the council is holding of issuing our Building Permit because we have not yet paid the $900 'Community Infrastructure Levy'. Say what?!
After frantically calling around to get an answer, mind you this was 4pm on a Friday afternoon. We finally got an answer from the council that the developer of Merrifield has decided to pass this cost onto the purchasing party. Here is the paragraph derived from the Hume City Council website (http://www.hume.vic.gov.au/Building_Planning/Planning/Planning_Fees):
'Community Infrastructure Levy
The Community Infrastructure Levy is a fee paid to Council by developers to assist in the provision of local facilities and services for each estate.The levy is generally paid for upfront by the developers upon settlement of a parcel of land. However, for some estates the developers will pass this requirement on to individual land owners.It is recommended that you contact the land developer for further information on your specific estate. Alternatively you can contact Council’s Strategic Planning department on (03) 9205 2200.'
At no point throughout the sales process did the developer disclose that there will be a levy passed down to us after settlement.
In the interested of not further delaying our build we will be paying the Levy first thing Monday morning. Having said that, I have sent an email to the Vendor requesting if this cost has truly been passed onto us the land owners and why it wasn't disclosed to us.
Thank your for reading.
We got hit with this levy as well. :-( Don't you love the hidden costs of building?!!
ReplyDeleteOh really! It's a joke. Everybody suddenly denies responsibility of the need to inform you of this cost.
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