Lambeth London Borough v English Property Corpn Ltd and Shepherd (Valuation Officer): LT 1980

The Tribunal was concerned with the annual value for rating of a warehouse (Bridge House) which was purpose built in 1933 with seven storeys which was unoccupied at the relevant date. The ratepayers were of the view that at the relevant date the warehouse had outlived its use and was unsuitable for warehousing purposes; that the premises had various disabilities; and that a tenant could have been found at the relevant date who would make use of the ground floor and some limited use of the first floor but that the upper parts would have been surplus to requirements. The ratepayers’ valuer supported the 16 rateable value of pounds 27,500 found by the valuation court. The valuation officer also supported this figure, but on a different analysis. The valuation authority appealed to the Lands Tribunal contending that the statutory assumption must be made that the building was in a good state of repair and that there was no reason why the hereditament should not be let in the open market as a multi-storey warehouse. They drew attention to the occupation by Boots of a ‘comparable’ hereditament being a multi-storey warehouse with offices at Stamford Street and they also drew attention to another comparable. The relevant date for the valuation was 7 February 1975. Until 1974 the Boots warehouse was occupied but Boots had then vacated their warehouse because it was no longer suitable for their warehousing operation. The Tribunal observed that the hereditament was to be valued at 7 February 1975 in the light of all the circumstances at that date. The Tribunal stated: ‘At that time, the other hereditament which is most closely comparable was the Boots warehouse at Stamford Street. Boots had moved out and the premises were almost entirely vacated and they remain so. The evidence is overwhelming that at that time there was no demand for multi-storey warehouse accommodation in this part of Central London. The valuation officer was of the opinion that there was no evidence to indicate that any tenant could be found who would be prepared to take these premises on any basis which attributed value to all of the 5 ac of storage accommodation. I agree with him . . .’
The Tribunal accepted the argument put forward by the appellant rating authority that the mere fact that premises were unoccupied does not of itself justify a lesser value than that applicable to similar premises which are occupied. The Tribunal stated: ‘As counsel for the rating authority expressed it, in a parade of shops where one shop remains unoccupied one would expect to find similar values applicable to all shops possessing similar characteristics. I think in principle that must be right, but that presupposes that the hereditaments are broadly identical. In the present case it is true that until 1974 the Boots warehouse was occupied, its occupation was of value and it had an agreed assessment of gross value pounds 165,000. But the two properties are not identical and in my opinion the Stamford Street premises are in many ways superior to Bridge House both in quality and in the general facilities which they provide. So long as they remained in occupation the actual owners were clearly to be regarded as possible hypothetical tenants in the rating hypothesis; but if Boots had not been in occupation of Stamford Street, I do not think they could be considered as potential occupiers of Bridge House in February 1975.’
In the result the Tribunal accepted the rateable value of pounds 27,500 and declined to place a value upon the upper parts of Bridge House. It may be noted that there was evidence before the Tribunal that the premises had outlived their use as a multi-storey warehouse and by the relevant date they were quite unsuitable for warehousing purposes. When the premises had first been designed they were used by relatively small newspaper vans and there was little difficulty in access to and from the premises by road 17 vehicles. However larger road vehicles meant access had become extremely difficult. Also there were further substantial difficulties in the construction of the property so far as concerns manoeuvrability of vehicles and suitability for forklift trucks and palletisation.

Judges:

Mr J H Emlyn Jones Frics

Citations:

[1980] RA 279

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedTelereal Trillium v Hewitt (Valuation Officer) SC 15-May-2019
The court considered correct approach to determination of the rateable value of an office building, in circumstances where the evidence showed at the relevant time a general demand in the area for comparable office buildings, but no actual tenant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Rating

Updated: 11 February 2022; Ref: scu.671896