Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004

105 Power to require information

(1) The Acquisition of Land Act 1981 (c. 67) is amended as follows.

(2) After section 5 (local inquiries) there is inserted—

“5A Power to require information

(1) This section applies to information about land in relation to which an acquiring authority is entitled to exercise a power of compulsory purchase.

(2) The acquiring authority may serve a notice on a person mentioned in subsection (4) requiring him to give to the authority in writing the following information—

(a) the name and address of any person he believes to be an owner, lessee, tenant (whatever the tenancy period) or occupier of the land;

(b) the name and address of any person he believes to have an interest in the land.

(3) The power in subsection (2) is exercisable for the purpose of enabling the acquiring authority to acquire the land.

(4) The persons are—

(a) the occupier of the land;

(b) any person who has an interest in the land either as freeholder, mortgagee or lessee;

(c) any person who directly or indirectly receives rent for the land;

(d) any person who, in pursuance of an agreement between himself and a person interested in the land, is authorised to manage the land or to arrange for the letting of it.

(5) The notice must specify the period within which the information must be given to the acquiring authority (being a period of not less than 14 days beginning with the day on which the notice is served).

(6) The notice must also specify or describe—

(a) the land,

(b) the compulsory purchase power, and

(c) the enactment which confers the power.

(7) The notice must be in writing.

(8) Section 6(4) does not apply to notices to be served under this section.

5B Offences relating to information

(1) A person commits an offence if he fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a notice served on him under section 5A.

(2) A person commits an offence if, in response to a notice served on him under section 5A—

(a) he gives information which is false in a material particular, and

(b) when he does so, he knows or ought reasonably to know that the information is false.

(3) If an offence under this section committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of—

(a) a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or

(b) a person purporting to act in any such capacity,

he, as well as the body corporate, is guilty of that offence and liable to be proceeded against accordingly.

(4) The reference in subsection (3) to a director must be construed in accordance with section 331(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

(5) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”