Deleayed Rates Claims Service made them Defective
The council claimed that the defendants were liable for business rates. The defendants said that the notices were defective in not having been served ‘as soon as practicable’, and further that they should not be enforced since the delay had created substantial prejudice. The Council challenged the correctness of the Waltham Forest and Nottingham cases.
Held: The court reviewed the issue of delay in issuing claims for rates. Though Honda had been in rateable occupation, the claims had ot been served as soon as was practicable, and, given the Council’s delays which would lead to an unconscionable burden on Honda, the case for recovering the sums claimed was unsustainable. The claim against all the defendants failed.
Burnett J
[2010] EWHC 1505 (QB), [2010] RA 285
Bailii
Non-Domestic Rating (Collection and Enforcement) (Local Lists) Regulations 1989 (SI 1989/1058), Local Government Finance Act 1988
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Encon Insulation Ltd v Nottingham City Council Admn 9-Jun-1999
When the rating authority discovered ratable premises, and issued claims going back in time the test was not whether they were unaware of them earlier, but whether they could have taken steps beforehand to discover the existence of the premises. A . .
Cited – London Borough of Waltham Forest, Regina (On the Application of) v Waltham Forest Magistrates’ Court and Yem Yom Ventures Limited Admn 4-Nov-2008
. .
Cited – Regina v Soneji and Bullen HL 21-Jul-2005
The defendants had had confiscation orders made against them. They had appealed on the basis that the orders were made more than six months after sentence. The prosecutor now appealed saying that the fact that the order were not timely did not . .
Cited – JJB Sports Plc, Regina (On the Application of) v Telford and Wrekin Borough Council Admn 5-Nov-2008
The authority’s demand notice was served later than was practicable. The company now appealed against a liability order.
Held: The ratepayer’s appeal by way of Case Stated was dismissed. ‘demand notices must be served by the relevant authority . .
Cited – Regentford Ltd v Thanet District Council Admn 18-Feb-2004
The council sought to enforce payment of arrears of council tax. The company responded that proceedings had not been begun in time. The company contended that time ran from the day when the council set the precept. The regulations said that time ran . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department Ex Parte Jeyeanthan; Ravichandran v Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 21-May-1999
The applicant had failed to comply with the Rules in not using the form prescribed for appliying for leave to appeal against a special adjudicator’s decision to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. The application, by letter, included all the relevant . .
Cited – Hardy v Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council Admn 27-Jul-2006
Appeal against finding of liability to pay council tax.
Held: A Magistrates’ Court which is invited to make a liability order may be entitled to refuse to make such an order in a case where there has been a serious breach of the mandatory . .
Cited – Howard v Bodington Carc 27-Feb-1877
Imperative or Directory Statutory Requirements
The court considered the consequences of a failure to comply with a statutory requirement.
Held: The distinction drawn between statutory requirements which were ‘imperative’ on the one hand and ‘directory’ on the other involved unfortunate use . .
Cited – London and Clydeside Estates v Aberdeen District Council HL 8-Nov-1979
Identifying ‘maandatory’ and ‘regulatory’
The appellants had sought a Certificate of Alternative Development. The certificate provided was defective in that it did not notify the appellants, as required, of their right to appeal. Their appeal out of time was refused.
Held: The House . .
Cited – Attorney General’s Reference No 3 of 1999: Application By the British Broadcasting Corporation To Set Aside or Vary a Reporting Restriction Order HL 17-Jun-2009
An application was made to discharge an anonymity order made in previous criminal proceedings before the House. The defendant was to be retried for rape under the 2003 Act, after an earlier acquittal. The applicant questioned whether such a order . .
Cited – Regentford Ltd, Regina (on the Application of) v Shepway District Council Admn 25-Oct-2006
A breach of the statutory duty by the billing authority to serve the notice as soon as practicable does not operate in all cases as a windfall to the person otherwise liable, but the breach precludes a claim to payment and a duty to pay only where . .
Cited – Wandsworth London Borough Council v Winder HL 1985
Rent demands were made by a local authority landlord on one of its tenants. The local authority, using its powers under the Act, resolved to increase rents generally. The tenant refused to pay the increased element of the rent. He argued that the . .
Cited – Charles v The Judicial and Legal Service Commission and The Disciplinary Tribunal PC 19-Jun-2002
PC (Trinidad and Tobago) Disciplinary proceedings had commenced against the appellant, the chief magistrate, but the time limits had not been followed. The appellant argued that the time limits were mandatory. . .
Cited – Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority 28-Apr-1998
(High Court of Australia) ‘In our opinion, the Court of Appeal of New South Wales was correct in Tasker v Fullwood in criticising the continued use of the ‘elusive distinction between directory and mandatory requirements’ and the division of . .
Cited – Wang v Commissioner of Inland Revenue PC 19-Oct-1994
(Hong Kong) At first instance the judge found that the deputy commissioner lacked jurisdiction to make two determinations since he had not done so within a reasonable time required by the imperative language of the statute. The Court of Appeal . .
Cited – Boddington v British Transport Police HL 2-Apr-1998
The defendant had been convicted, under regulations made under the Act, of smoking in a railway carriage. He sought to challenge the validity of the regulations themselves. He wanted to argue that the power to ban smoking on carriages did not . .
Cited – Dedman v British Building and Engineering Appliances CA 1973
The claimant sought to bring his claim under a provision which required a complaint to the industrial tribunal to be made within four weeks of the dismissal unless the employment tribunal was satisfied that this was not ‘practicable’. He did not . .
Cited – Regina v Chief Constable of South Wales and Another Ex Parte Merrick QBD 17-Feb-1994
The court considered the failure of the respondent to comply with a statutory requirement to comply with a request from a detained person to consult a solicitor ‘as soon as practicable’.
Held: For the police to deny access to solicitors at . .
Cited – Allan v Liverpool Overseers 1874
The court was asked whether a steamship company was liable to be rated in respect of its occupation of sheds which it occupied under a licence from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. The court noted that liability for rates fell only on a person . .
Cited – Hewson, Chapman and Co ltd v Grimsby County Borough Council 1953
That storage facilities might stand empty from time to time does not result in their ceasing to be in rateable occupation during those periods. . .
Cited – Milford Haven Conservancy Board v Inland Revenue Commissioners CA 1976
The Minister had power to make provision by order for determining rateable values ‘by such method as may be so specified’. The formula prescribed by the Minister for dock undertakings was based on 4% of their receipts, including receipts from some . .
Cited – Camden London Borough Council v Herwald 1978
Occupation of part of a hereditament by someone who retains legal possession of the whole and whose occupation of the part fulfils the description in the rating list, amounts to rateable occupation of the whole. . .
Cited – Regina v Central Valuation Officer and another ex parte Edison First Power Limited HL 10-Apr-2003
Powergen sold a property to Edison. Powergen paid rates under a separate statutory rating regime, and paid an additional thirteen million pounds under an apportionment. Edison later complained that in being rated itself, the authorities had . .
Cited – P.B. Groenveld BV v Produktschap voor Vee en Vlees ECJ 8-Nov-1979
A prohibited restriction on exports involved a national measure having discriminatory effect: ‘provision [i.e. Article 29 EC; now Article 35 TFEU] concerns the national measures which have as their specific object or effect the restriction of . .
Cited – Edison First Power Ltd v The Secretary of State for Department of Environment Transport and the Regions CA 12-Jul-2001
. .
Cited by:
Cited – Secerno Ltd and Others v Oxford Magistrates Court and Another Admn 19-Apr-2011
The applicants each sought judicial review of a decision of the magistrate that he did not have jurisdiction to decline to issue liability notices. They argued that the Council had failed to issue the required notices before placing the properties . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Rating
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.420209