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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  















Rating - From: 2003 To: 2003

This page lists 15 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
Listing Officer v Bryant and others [2003] EWHC 422 (Admin)
17 Feb 2003
Admn

Rating

Council Tax (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) Regulations 1993
[ Bailii ]
 
Gardiner, Regina (on the Application Of) v Swindon Borough Council [2003] EWHC 515 (Admin)
25 Feb 2003
Admn

Rating

[ Bailii ]
 
Bennett v Copeland Borough Council [2003] EWHC 990 (Admin)
13 Mar 2003
Admn
Michael Supperstone QCJ
Rating
Appeal against determinatin of liability for council tax.
[ Bailii ]
 
Evans (Valuation Officer) [2003] EWLands RA_10_2002
21 Mar 2003
LT

Rating
General Rate Act, 1967, s.115(1) - Meaning of hereditament - Non-contiguous properties in single occupation - structurally and geographically separated - Functional connection insufficient to justify finding single hereditament
[ Bailii ]

 
 Orange PCS v Bradford (VO); LT 8-Apr-2003 - [2003] EWLands RA_53_2001

 
 Regina v Central Valuation Officer and another ex parte Edison First Power Limited; HL 10-Apr-2003 - [2003] UKHL 20; [2003] 4 All ER 209; [2003] RA 325; [2003] 16 EGCS 101; [2003] 16 EG 101; [2003] 2 EGLR 133
 
Cinderella Rockerfellas Ltd v Rudd (Valuation Officer) [2003] EWCA Civ 529; Times, 23 April 2003; [2003] 1 WLR 2423
11 Apr 2003
CA
Potter, Chadwick, Tuckey LJJ
Rating
The taxpayer appealed against a rating assessment on a barge permanently moored at a riverbank. He claimed that as a chattel, it should not be rated. Held: The vessel was a chattel, but its occupation could be an occupation of the riverbed. The licences were stated to be non-exclusive, but the law of rating looks to the reality of the circumstances. Given the authorities, the occupier was rateable by virtue of it soccupation of the land by the boat.
Potter LJ reviewed the authorities and said: "The four conditions of rateable occupation as set out in John Laing & Son Ltd v Kingswood Assessment Committee [1949] 1 KB 344, 357 and approved in London County Council v Wilkins [1957] AC 362 are (i) actual occupational possession (which involves actual as opposed to intended user of the land in question); (ii) occupation or possession which is exclusive (i.e. if the occupier can exclude all other persons from using the land in the same way as he does); (iii) occupation or possession which is of some value or benefit to the occupier/possessor; (iv) occupation or possession which has a sufficient quality of permanence; see generally Ryde on Rating and the Council Tax, loose-leaf ed, Division B, paras 61-62.
The cases culminating in London County Council v Wilkins and Field Place Caravan Park Ltd v Harding [1966] 2 QB 484, which developed the principle that chattels may be rateable if enjoyed with the land and enhancing its value, have also made clear that the placing of a valuable chattel in or on land may itself be all that is required by way of occupation of the lands to render the chattel and the land together a rateable hereditament.
Assuming for a moment that condition (i) can be satisfied, in the sense that the Lands Tribunal was entitled to hold that the vessel could properly be regarded as occupying the riverbed beneath (see further below), there seems to me no room for doubt that conditions (ii)-(iv) were satisfied in this case.
So far as condition (ii) is concerned, when a person occupies land in respect of which he has no title to the exclusive occupation or possession but his occupation is exclusive in fact, then he is rateable in respect of that occupation. It seems to me that the question is identical to that enunciated by Lord Russell in Westminster City Council v Southern Railway Co [1936] AC 511, 532, namely whether the person sought to be rated has the enjoyment of the land "to the substantial exclusion of all other persons". As made clear in that case, at p 533, the relevant question is: what in fact is the occupation in respect of which the person is said to be rateable and, in that respect, it is immaterial whether the title to occupy is attributable to a lease or a licence. The substance of the document granting the right of occupation is highly material; however, what is material is not so much the precise terms of the grant but whether the occupation is in fact greater or lesser than the terms convey. It is also the position that the reservation by the grantor of a right which is never exercised and could not be fully exercised without destroying the grant is to be disregarded: per Lord Wright at p 567.
The factual position in this case, as already indicated, was that the vessel between 1990 and 1999, under successive licences from the Crown Estate Commissioners, occupied a fixed position in the river, immediately above the area of the foreshore and riverbed the subject of the licence. While the licence stated that its terms were not to be construed as giving exclusive use of the disputed area to the appellants, the liberty of the commissioners to grant elsewhere any rights or easements over the relevant land was limited by the proviso that it should not thereby prevent the placing and maintenance of the vessel in accordance with the licence. Nor, as the agreed facts stated, were any other or "rival" rights granted by the commissioners during the entire period that the vessel was moored in position under the terms of the licence. In these circumstances it is clear that if the vessel could be properly regarded in occupation of the riverbed beneath, it was de facto in exclusive occupation.
So far as condition (iii) is concerned, it is plain that the occupation was of great value and benefit to the appellants as occupiers. Equally, so far as condition (iv) was concerned, there was a period of occupation of some nine years with a single brief interruption on some unspecified date when the vessel was temporarily removed from its moorings by tugs. I therefore return to consider condition (i).
Throughout a period of nine years, the vessel was placed in position over the licensed area of riverbed beneath. While the principle stated in London County Council v Wilkins [1957] AC 362 and Field Place Caravan Park Ltd [1966] 2 QB 484 dealt with structures which were physically placed upon dry land, and there were not in this case any moorings within the riverbed by which the vessel could be said to occupy the riverbed (cf Cory v Bristow App Cas 262), it does not seem to me that the interposition of water between the vessel and the riverbed of itself acted in any significant manner to deprive the appellants of occupation of the area of the riverbed the subject of the licence. The "permanent" presence of the vessel was sufficient to constitute de facto exclusive occupation of that part of the riverbed. That view seems to me entirely consistent with the observations of Lloyd and Mann LJJ in Westminster City Council Woodbury [1992] Ran1, 8-9, 14, quoted at paragraphs 30 and 31 above."
Local Government Finance Act 1982 64(1)
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Pilot Foods Ltd , Regina (on the Application Of) v Horsferry Road Magistrates Court [2003] EWHC 1447 (Admin)
15 May 2003
Admn

Rating

[ Bailii ]
 
Listing Officer, Regina (on the Application Of) v Royal National Institute for the Blind and others [2003] EWHC 1308 (Admin)
19 May 2003
Admn

Rating

[ Bailii ]
 
O'Brien v Harwood (Valuation Officer) [2003] EWLands RA_22_2002
5 Jun 2003
LT

Rating
LT RATING - advertising rights - Tribunal required to determine rating appeals under existing system - ability to pay - methods of valuation - profits basis -rents - assessments - tone of the list - appeal dismissed.
[ Bailii ]
 
Williams v Horsham District Council Gazette, 10 July 2003; [2003] EWHC 1862 (Admin)
26 Jun 2003
Admn
Mr Justice McCombe
Local Government, Rating
The resident owned a house but lived elsewhere, visiting the cottage only occasionally, and not staying overnight. He paid full council tax at first but then sought a rebate under the Act. Held: The tribunal had exaggerated the importance of the fact that his wife lived elsewhere and that he did not stay overnight. They should not be elevated beyond other factors.
Local Government Finance Act 1992 11(2)(a)
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]

 
 Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Regina (on the Application of) v Perks and Another; Admn 8-Jul-2003 - [2003] EWHC 1749 (Admin)
 
Tully and Another v Jorgensen (Valuation Officer) [2003] EWLands RA_22_2001
4 Aug 2003
LT

Rating
LT RATING - rateable property - composite premises - non-domestic premises - employed person using bedroom at home for full-time office work - Local Government Finance Act 1988 s 66(1)(a) - held house used wholly for purposes of living accommodation, therefore not rateable
Local Government Finance Act 1988 66(1)(a)
[ Bailii ]
 
Pyrke (Valuation Officer) [2003] EWLands RA_75_1998
15 Sep 2003
LT

Rating
LT RATING – exemption – agricultural building – Local Government Finance Act 1988 Sch 5 para 7 – seed warehouse occupied by members co-operative – members themselves co-operatives – agricultural land occupied not by member co-operatives but by their individual members – substantial proportion of seed coming from and going to persons other than member co-operatives and their members – held not exempt
[ Bailii ]

 
 Clark, Regina (on the Application of) v Bracknell Forest Borough Council; Admn 1-Dec-2003 - [2003] EWHC 3095 (Admin)
 
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