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The decision of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in Colour Weddings Ltd v Roberts (VO) (2019) UKUT 0385 (LC) concerned a former warehouse building in Salford, which was undergoing works to enable a change of use to that of wedding venue. The buildings concerned had been constructed in the 1970s and 1980s and had been vacant for some time. As a result of this they were in a poor state of repair. The appellant agreed to take a lease of the property in 2013, with a view to converting its use to a wedding venue. Having secured a planning consent for this change of use, the lease was completed in 2014. The appellant made a proposal seeking to delete the assessment from the rating list on the basis that it required major structural repair and refurbishment to enable the new use.
The Valuation Officer was not willing to agree that the assessment be deleted, and the proposal was referred to the Valuation Tribunal for England which dismissed the ratepayer’s appeal. The ratepayer appealed against that decision to the Upper Tribunal.
Before the Upper Tribunal the ratepayer contended that substantial works of reconstruction had commenced in January 2015 and that the property should be deleted from the rating list from that date. The ratepayer also contended that, because of the change in planning consent, the property could not legally be used for its former use as warehouse.
The Valuation Officer contended that, because the ratepayer’s proposal sought to delete the property from the rating list, the relevant material day was the date which was stated on the proposal as being the date from which the ratepayer was seeking the deletion, and this was 16 December 2014. Taking circumstances as they were at that date, the Valuation Officer contended that the property was still at that time warehouse, albeit in a poor state of repair, and that it should be assessed as in warehouse use.
The Valuation Officer also contended that repairs to the property to enable warehouse use would have been economic and that, at the relevant material day, no works had started to enable the change of use and it was, therefore, correct to continue to value the property as a warehouse in an assumed reasonable state of repair.
In its decision the Tribunal made clear that the proposal made by the ratepayer sought deletion of the rating assessment, and that the appeal should be considered on that basis alone. The circumstances were those of a property undergoing works of alteration and where, at some stage during those works, the property would become incapable of beneficial occupation. In such circumstances it was proper to delete the assessment for the reasons set out by the Supreme Court in Newbigin (VO) v SJ & J Monk (2017). The Tribunal was satisfied that there was no evidence to show that the property was incapable of beneficial occupation at the date specified in the proposal, 16 December 2014, but it was clear that by August 2015 the property had indeed become incapable of beneficial occupation. The Tribunal found itself faced with incomplete, and to some extent conflicting, evidence regarding the works that had been carried out, but concluded that the stage at which the property had become incapable of beneficial occupation was the midpoint of the drainage and plumbing works.
The Tribunal therefore determined that the description should be altered to “building undergoing reconstruction” and the assessment reduced to RV £0 with effect from 26 April 2015.
The Tribunal’s decision in this case was clearly complicated by incomplete and conflicting evidence as to the works that have been carried out, and the dates of those works. But the decision, nevertheless, represents an orthodox application of the principles set out by the Supreme Court in Newbigin (VO) v SJ & J Monk. The one unusual aspect that will strike practitioners is the fact that the making of a proposal to delete the assessment, rather than one to reduce it to a nominal figure, meant that the material day became “the date on which the circumstances giving rise to the alteration first occurred”, rather than the date of the proposal itself. This had the unusual effect, in this case, of meaning that the alteration to the rating list that was finally made had an effective date after that of the proposal. The regulations relating to “material day” normally create difficulties for ratepayers but, in this case, they worked in a helpful way to the ratepayer.
