Ellerby v March
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SOMERVELL,LORD JUSTICE BIRKETT |
| Judgment Date | 10 May 1954 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1954] EWCA Civ J0510-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 10 May 1954 |
[1954] EWCA Civ J0510-1
In the Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal.
Lord Justice Somervell,
Lord Justice Birkett and
Lord Justice Romer.
In the Matter of the Local Government Act, 1948. and
In the Matter of an Appeal to the Lands Tribunal Against a Decision of a Local Valuation Court for West Kent
MR MAURICE LYELL, Q.C., (instructed by the Solicitor of Inland Revenue) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR MICHAEL ROWE, Q.C., and MR. F.A. AMIES (instructed by Messrs Kinch & Richardson, agents for Messrs T.G. Baynes & Sons, Dartford) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
This is an appeal by way of Case stated by the Lands Tribunal pursuant to section 3(4) of the Lands Tribunal Act and it raises a question of construction under theLocal Government Act of 1948. The actual facts do not matter very much but it is perhaps right that I should summarize them. The appeal before the Lands Tribunal was against the decision of the Local Valuation Court of West Kent which directed that the property of the Appellant, that is the occupier who is the Respondent in this Court, should be entered at a gross value of £100 and a rateable value of £80. Prior to June 1952, the hereditament appeared in the then valuation list at a gross value of £27 and a rateable value of £20. On the 20th June, 1952, the Valuation Officer made a proposal to alter the figures and he submitted it should be £140 gross and £113 rateable value. There was objection to that and under the code as set out in the Act the Valuation Officer appealed against the objection to the Local Valuation Court. Under the procedure, which I do not think I need go into in detail for Mr. Rowe accepted Mr. Lyell's description of the effect of it, before the Local Valuation Court the person in the position of Appellant is the person who is seeking to alter, or if two people are seeking to alter the person who is seeking most to alter, the status que figure. That appeal was heard and, as very often happens, I expect, in these appeals, neither side was wholly victorious. The direction was gross value £100, rateable value £80. The occupier gave notice of appeal on the ground that the buildings were exempt from rates under the Local Government Act, 1929, and if not so exempt the assessment was excessive. There is a notice which I will refer to later by the Valuation Officer under the rules, but it is common ground that that was the only appeal before the Tribunal.
The question raised by this Case is whether that being so, the only appeal being by the occupier, it was open to the Lands Tribunal to hear and consider evidence led by the Valuation Officer, or it might have been the rating authority, with a view to increasing the figure from that directed by the Valuation Court to something above that, but, of course, not exceeding the sum originally submitted by the Valuation Officer.
The Lands Tribunal held that they were not entitled to raise the figure. They held that all they were entitled to do was to consider the formal appeal before them which was by the occupier and, of course, the only matter for which the occupier was contending was that the value should be lowered below that directed by the Valuation Court. The question on this appeal is whether they were right in law or whether, as Mr. Lyell contends on behalf of the Valuation Officer, under the Act of Parliament they had jurisdiction to entertain an application by the Valuation Officer that the figure should be as high as originally proposed although he had not himself appealed.
The Local Government Act of 1948 provided that appeals from a Local Valuation Court should be to the County Court. When the Lands Tribunal was set up under the Lands Tribunal Act of 1949, that Tribunal was substituted by section 1(3)(e) for the County Court, there being no actual amendment or alteration of the words in the 1948 Act which I am shortly going to read. We were rightly taken through the various somewhat complicated sections dealing with the procedure at the different stages but I do not myself find it necessary to refer in detail to them. I think this question can be made sufficiently clear by considering sections 48 and 49. Section 48 deals with the procedure where there is a notice of appeal to a Local Valuation Court and provides who may be heard, the appellant, the Valuation Officer, if not the appellant, the owner or occupier, when he is not the appellant, the Rating Authority when it is not the appellant, and a fifth class which we need not consider. Subsection 4 says this: "After hearing the persons mentioned in the last preceding subsection, or such of them as desire to be heard, the local valuation court shall give such directions with respect to the manner in which the hereditament in question is to be treated in the valuation list as appear to them to be necessary to give effect to the contention of the appellant if and so far as that contention appears to the court to be well founded, and the valuation officer shall incorporate in the listas settled, or, as the case may be, cause to be made in the list, such alterations as are necessary to give effect to those directions". Section 49(1) says this: "Any person who, in pursuance of the last preceding section, appeared before a local valuation court on the hearing of an appeal and is aggrieved by the decision of the court thereon may, within twenty-one days from the date of the decision, appeal to the county court for the county court district in which the hereditament in question is situated, or" – and then there are words which I can leave out – "and the court, after hearing such of the persons as appeared as aforesaid as desire to be heard, may give any directions which the local valuation court might have given".
Taking the actual facts as stated in the present case, the Local Valuation Court could have done anything from directing that the figures should remain as they were, £27 gross and 20 rateable value up to the alteration proposed by the Valuation Officer of £140 gross and £113 rateable. Therefore it is submitted that however limited the ambit of the appeal might be in this or other cases these last words which I have read confer a statutory jurisdiction, which must not be restricted by any procedural conditions precedent, to hear and determine all the issues which were raised and raisable...
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