Lush J said: ‘It is not easy to give an accurate and exhaustive definition of the word ‘occupier’. Occupation includes possession as its primary element, but it also includes something more. Legal possession does not of itself constitute an occupation. The owner of a vacant house is in possession, and may maintain trespass against anyone who invades it, but as long as he leaves it vacant he is not rateable for it as an occupier. If, however, he furnishes it, and keeps it ready for habitation whenever he pleases to go to it, he is an occupier, though he may well reside in it one day in a year.’ and ‘Thus a transient temporary holding of land is not enough to make the holding rateable. It must be an occupation which has in it a character of permanence; a holding as a settler not as a wayfarer’.
Judges:
Lush J
Citations:
[1877] 2 QBD 581
Rating
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.451844
