A FAMILY has hit out after a bungling council billed £20,000 just to allow them to install electricity cables.
Sarah Pope and her husband said it was "the reverse of winning the lottery" after they were charged the extortionate sum to run a cable through a piece of local authority owned land near their home in Truro, Cornwall.
The council won't even carry out the work – but sent the fee just to allow the family permission to use its land.
But the scheme hit a snag when National Grid told the couple it was not possible to run a connection from the electricity pole to their extension.
The family then had to dig a trench across a piece of council owned land to connect the extension to the National Grid.
That is when the council told them they would be charged £20k.
The actual cost for the work is £5,00 and will be carried out by private contractors.
Sarah's daughter, Emily Scrivener, who is managing the building project, said the family felt "held to ransom."
Emily told CornwallLive:"The phone call was the complete reverse of someone telling you you've won the lottery I imagine."
Emily claimed her parents have had to sell their bungalow and have now lost "a lot of money which will never be returned".
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She added:"I honestly think it's disgusting to take a commercial view and to profit off my elderly relatives is criminal in my opinion," she said.
"They are on a fixed income and have had to sell their bungalow, lose a lot of money which will never be returned as this is not an investment that will ever pay off for any of us financially.
"It's a purely health and wellbeing decision."
Tom Edwards, partner in property disputes at LCF Law, advised home owners do their research before carrying out extension work.
A spokeswoman for Cornwall Council said it was a long-established professional practice for a payment to be made to a landowner for accessing and using its land to facilitate development.
They added: "The level of charge is determined by the increase in value of the property and whilst ideally the resident should have asked for the council's consent in advance of constructing the annex, that has not altered the council's approach to the valuation.
"The resident is invited to appoint a chartered surveyor to discuss the matter with the council if they remain dissatisfied but a significant discount to the valuation has already been offered."
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