Important decision on the rating of new buildings

The decision of the Administrative Court in Reeves (VO) v Valuation Tribunal for England (2015) EWHC 973 (Admin) is one which has important lessons for the owners of new buildings.

The case concerns Beluga House, an office building built in the 1980’s at Littleton-upon-Severn near Bristol. The property was included in the 2000 rating list but, in 2003, it was heavily vandalised and the assessment was deleted. In 2007 the valuation officer entered the property in the 2005 rating list but later agreed to delete that assessment on the grounds that the property was incomplete and incapable of beneficial occupation. In August 2008 the billing authority, South Gloucestershire Council, issued a completion notice in respect of Beluga House specifying a completion date of 20 August 2008. The effect of the completion notice was to deem the property complete and capable of occupation from 20 August 2008 and to require the valuation officer to enter the property into the rating list, which he did.

The ratepayer, Tull Properties, appealed against the completion notice and that appeal was heard by the Valuation Tribunal for England. The Tribunal determined that the completion notice was invalid because the alterations in question had not resulted in a new building. As a result the Tribunal ordered that the completion notice be quashed and that “the subject hereditament is to be deleted from the 2005 rating list”.

The Valuation Officer questioned whether the Tribunal was able to make an order deleting the assessment from the rating list as a consequence of an appeal against a completion notice and asked the Tribunal to review its decision. The Tribunal declined to review the decision and made clear that, if the valuation officer felt that the decision exceeded the powers of the Tribunal, the route to challenge this would be by way of an application for judicial review.

The valuation officer made such an application and the Administrative Court has determined that the Valuation Tribunal had no power to order the deletion of the assessment from the rating list as a determination of an appeal against the completion notice. Whilst an appeal against a completion notice could consider whether the notice was a valid one, the Tribunal’s powers to made orders in respect of completion notice appeals were limited to determining a completion date and did not include the making of orders to alter the rating list.

The decision of the Administrative Court sets out a detailed analysis of the powers of the Valuation Tribunal for England. It seems clear that property owners seeking to challenge the inclusion of a new property in the rating list as a result of the issue of a completion notice will need both to make an appeal against the completion notice and to make a proposal against the rating list entry resulting from that notice. Both appeals will end up before the Valuation Tribunal for England, but the Tribunal’s powers in respect of the appeals are different.

The timing of this decision is important too. As we have reported elsewhere in these News pages, from 1 April 2015 there are strict limits on the extent to which proposals made by ratepayers against rating list alterations by the valuation officer can backdate. If a ratepayer’s proposal to alter the rating list is to have backdated effect before 1 April 2015 it must be made within six months of the valuation officer’s alteration of the list.

So, not only will it be important for property owners to challenge both a completion notice and the associated rating list alteration, but both challenges are subject to time limits – 28 days in respect of a completion notice appeal and six months in respect of the consequent rating list alteration.

Property owners beware….