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The decision of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in Avison Young Limited v Jackson (VO) (2020) UKUT 0058 (LC) concerned the application of Regulation 38 (7) of the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) Regulations, and the “reinstatement” of an earlier rateable value under this provision.
The case concerned offices in Gresham Street, in the City of London, which were stripped out and re-fitted out in 2014, including the installation of an internal staircase. The rateable value was reduced to £0 during the works. The Valuation Officer took action to reinstate the assessment following the works but, by the time he did so, his alteration was date limited to 1 April 2015, whereas the works had finished on 8 February 2015. To cover the period between those dates, when the appeal came before the Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE), the Valuation Officer asked the VTE to use its powers under Regulation 38 (7) to “reinstate” the original rateable value (£1.83 million) with effect from 8 February 2015. The ratepayer argued that the original RV should not be reinstated from the end of the works, because the hereditament had been altered in size by virtue of the installation of the staircase. The VTE determined that it was entitled to reinstate the original RV, albeit recognising that the figure may not be accurate because of the alterations carried out to the property. The ratepayer appealed to the Upper Tribunal.
However, the Tribunal gave the ratepayers’ carefully constructed legal submissions short shrift, stating “I do not accept these submissions. They seem to me to adopt an inappropriately semantic and unnecessarily legalistic approach to a power expressed in non-technical terms”. The Tribunal went on to say “The language of regulation 38(7) is simple and its purpose is clear, namely to enable the VTE to direct temporary alterations to the list where the circumstances justifying those alterations are themselves temporary. Given that the power is a discretionary one there is no obvious reason to give it a narrow interpretation, and to do so would blunt its usefulness”.
The decision was published very promptly after the hearing, and has determined that the VTE was entitled to reinstate the original rateable value because “the circumstances giving rise to the alteration had ceased to exist”.
Interestingly, the Upper Tribunal indicated that it considered it was that this was an appeal against a discretionary case management decision of the VTE, rather than an appeal on a question of valuation. The significance of this is that appeals against discretionary case management decisions are dealt with by way of a review of the decision concerned, whereas appeals on questions of valuation are dealt with by way of a re-hearing. That point was not finally determined, because the Tribunal was of the view that, whether this was a re-hearing or a review of the VTE’s decision, the outcome was the same.
The case is of some current significance because many of the remaining 2010 rating list appeals which are awaiting hearing before the VTE may involve the issue of “reinstatement” of rateable value and because, with the current near-paralysis of the appeals system for the 2017 Rating List under “Check Challenge Appeal” (CCA), similar circumstances may well arise after the end of the 2017 Rating List.
