Section 31B Licence agreements
Amendments
Section 31B inserted by Finance (No. 2) Act 2008 section 82(1)(a) from a day to be appointed by the Minister for Finance.
(1) In this section—
"development", in relation to any land, means—
(a) the construction, demolition, extension, alteration or reconstruction of any building on the land, or
(b) any engineering or other operation in, on, over or under the land to adapt it for materially altered use;
"public private partnership arrangement" has the meaning assigned to it by section 3(1)(a) of the State Authorities (Public Private Partnership Arrangements) Act 2002.
When do the "site licence" anti-avoidance rules apply?
(1) This is an anti-avoidance section. It deals with a situation where a land owner allows development of his/her land by another person without actually selling the land to that person. He/she grants the other person a "licence" or several "site lic...
(2) Where—
(a) the holder of an estate or interest in land in the State enters into an agreement with another person under which that other person, or a nominee of that other person, is entitled to enter onto the land to carry out development on that land, and
(b) by virtue of the agreement, otherwise than as consideration for the sale of all or part of the estate or interest in the land, the holder of the estate or interest in the land receives at any time a payment which amounts to, or as the case may be payments which together amount to, 25 per cent or more of the market value of the land concerned,
then within 30 days of the first such time, the agreement shall be chargeable with the same ad valorem duty, to be paid by that other person, as if it were a conveyance or transfer of the estate or interest in the land.
(3) Subsection (2) shall not apply to an agreement, to which this section applies, entered into solely in connection with a public private partnership arrangement.
(4) The ad valorem duty paid on any agreement, in accordance with subsection (2), shall be returned where it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners that the agreement has been rescinded or annulled.



