John Laing and Son Ltd v Assessment Committee for Kingswood Assessment Area and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1949 |
| Date | 1949 |
| Year | 1949 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
Rating - Amendment of valuation list - Building contractors' offices, canteens, and other structures - Actual and exclusive occupation - Rateable occupation -
Building contractors, having entered into a contract with the Air Ministry to execute works involving the lengthening and widening and strengthening of a runway, the preparation of a landing ground and the demolition of buildings, on a Government aerodrome, erected on the site, for the purpose of carrying out the contract, offices, garages, canteens for workmen and other structures. The site had been handed over to the contractors but by the conditions in the contract the execution of the work was subject to the control and directions of the Ministry's superintending officer.
On an appeal by the contractors against a proposal by the local rating authorities to amend the current valuation list by adding thereto the contractors' offices and other structures as a rateable hereditament, a special case was stated under s. 11 of Baines' Act for the opinion of the Divisional Court on the question whether the contractors were in rateable occupation of the said hereditament The Divisional Court answered the question in the affirmative, holding that the contractors were occupying the site, as licensees, for the purpose of carrying on their business, thereby acquiring a beneficial occupation. On appeal —
Held, that the control exercised under the contract by the Ministry was with regard only to the performance of the contract and was not such as to interfere with the exclusive occupation of the hereditament by the contractors for the purposes of their business.
APPEAL by plaintiffs from decision of Divisional Court on case stated.
By a contract in writing dated June 21, 1946, made between His Majesty's Secretary of State for Air and the plaintiffs, John Laing & Son, Ld., the plaintiffs undertook to execute works involving the strengthening, widening and lengthening of the east-west runway, the preparation of the landing grounds, and the demolition of buildings, at Filton Aerodrome in the county of Gloucester. The contract price was approximately 1,250,000l. On June 26, 1946, a part of the site was handed over to the plaintiffs for the assembly of plant and offices, and the remainder of the site on which constructional work had to be carried on was handed over in sections as it became available. In the execution of the contract the plaintiffs necessarily employed a very large supervisory staff, for whom temporary office accommodation had to be provided. They also had to erect garages, workmen's canteens, weighbridge and other huts, concrete bases for plant and machinery, and loading ramps and platforms. By the conditions of the contract the work was to be executed subject to the control and directions of the Ministry's superintending officer.
On February 21, 1947, the rating authority for the Thornbury Rural District Council made a proposal to amend the current valuation list by adding thereto, as a rateable hereditament, the plaintiffs' “offices, canteens, huts, structures, land, etc.,” which they assessed at 484l. gross and 400l. rateable value. The plaintiffs objected to the proposal and on March 21, 1947, their objection came before the defendant assessment committee who decided to make the proposed amendment. The plaintiffs thereupon gave notice of appeal to the county of Gloucester quarter sessions. On March 5, 1948, Birkett J., by consent of the parties, ordered, under s. 11, of Baines' Act, a special case to be stated. The question of law for the opinion of the Divisional Court was whether the plaintiffs were in rateable occupation of all or any of the structures comprised in the said hereditament.
On April 29, 1948, the Divisional CourtF1 answered the question of law in the affirmative, holding that the plaintiffs occupied the land as licensees and for the purpose of their business, thereby getting a beneficial occupation.
The plaintiffs appealed.
Harold Williams K.C. and R. D. Stewart-Brown for the plaintiffs. Rateability depends on the occupation of land. The fact of occupation by somebody is normally quite clear, but cases of difficulty arise where it is found that two or more persons may be said to occupy, and it has to be determined which is in occupation for rating purposes. Such cases appear to fall into three groups (1.) where there is occupation by a servant or agent and it has to be decided whether the servant or the employer should be regarded as the rateable occupier; (2.) lodgers — whether the lodger is in occupation of a separate part of the house or the landlord is in occupation of the whole; and (3.) where a contractor goes on to the land to do work for somebody who, until then, was the occupier. On this third question there is no authority binding on this court. The law has developed on the basic principle that there must be beneficial occupation. In Reg. v. St. Pancras UnionF2 Lush J. defined rateable occupation in language which for many years has been approved: “Occupier 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 …. he is an occupier though he may not reside in it one day in a year. On the other hand a person who, without having any title, takes actual possession of a house or piece of land, whether by leave of the owner or against his will, is the occupier of it. Another element, however, besides actual possession of the land, is necessary to constitute the kind of occupation which the Act contemplates, and that is permanence …. A transient, temporary holding of land is not enough to make the holding rateable. It must be an occupation which has in it the character of permanence — a holding as a settler not as a wayfarer. These I take to be the essential elements of what is called a beneficial or rateable occupation.” It is clear from that pronouncement that the person visibly using the land is not necessarily the rateable occupier. The position of the contractor was considered by the courts in Mitchell Brothers, Ld. v. Worksop UnionF3 In re Knott and Cardiff CorporationF4, but those cases are not very helpful here. The facts in Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Co., Ld. v. Darlington UnionF5 are closely similar to those in this case, but so far as the decision there was founded on Smith v. Lambeth Assessment CommitteeF6 it is no longer an authority. Westminster Council v. Southern Ry. Co. and W. H. Smith & Son, Ld.F7 was decided under a special statute, the Railways Valuation Act, and the specific question which arose for decision was whether certain premises were so let out as to be capable of separate assessment. In the present case the building contractor is brought on to the site for the purposes of the building owner, and the control of the building owner, through his superintending officer, over the very purposes for which the contractor is brought there, is almost absolute. The contractor cannot exclude the building owner from the site or these particular buildings. For all practical purposes he is nothing more than a servant using special tools and machinery and doing something for the building owner on the building owner's land. Occupation to be rateable must be something more than occupation by a subordinate for the purpose of the predominant occupier. It is impossible in the circumstances of the present case to say that the contractors are in exclusive occupation. There is an entire absence of any of the essential qualifications found in Westminster Council v. Southern Ry. Co.F7.
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