London County Council v Wilkins
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Chancellor,Earl Jowitt,Lord Oaksey,Lord Radcliffe,Lord Tucker |
| Judgment Date | 11 July 1956 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1956] UKHL J0711-1 |
| Date | 11 July 1956 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1956] UKHL J0711-1
House of Lords
Lord Chancellor
Earl Jowitt
Lord Oaksey
Lord Radcliffe
Lord Tucker
Upon Report from the Appellate Committee, to whom was referred the Cause London County Council against Wilkins (Valuation Officer), that the Committee had heard Counsel, as well on Wednesday the 9th, as on Thursday the 10th, days of May last, upon the Petition and Appeal of the London County Council, of The County Hall, Westminster Bridge, S.E.1, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely, an Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of the 30th of March 1955, might be reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioners might have such other relief in the premises as to Her Majesty the Queen, in Her Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of Joseph Lawrence Wilkins (Valuation Officer), lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen assembled, That the said Order of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 30th day of March 1955, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Affirmed, and that the said Petition and Appeal be, and the same is hereby, dismissed this House: And it is further Ordered, That the Appellants do pay, or cause to be paid, to the said Respondent the Costs incurred by him in respect of the said Appeal, the amount thereof to be certified by the Clerk of the Parliaments.
My Lords,
This is an appeal from an Order of the Court of Appeal dated 30th March, 1955, whereby that Court (Evershed, M.R., Jenkins, L.J., and Romer, L.J.) dismissed an appeal by the Appellants upon a Case Stated by the Lands Tribunal pursuant to section 3 (4) and (11) of the Lands Tribunal Act, 1949, and Order 58 of the Rules of the Supreme Court and affirmed the decision of the Lands Tribunal. That decision had dismissed (subject to an agreed minor amendment of the Valuation List) an appeal from a decision of the Local Valuation Court for North East London.
The question raised by the appeal is whether huts erected by a builder on a building site for use in connection with his building operations are rateable.
The Appellants are the owners of certain land situate in Walker Street in the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. In order to build a school thereon the Appellants entered into a contract with F. R. Hipperson & Son, Limited (whom I shall call "the contractors") dated 30th March, 1950.
The Appellants handed over the building site to the contractors on 12th December, 1949. In about January, 1950, the contractors brought on to the building site and erected there certain huts which are described in the Case Stated as follows:—
"A. General Foreman's and Timekeeper's Office.
Wooden sectional hut with wood roof covered by tarred felt, wood floor on sleepers. Dimensions, 9' by 12' 9?, area 114 square feet. Dismantled early in September, 1951. If assessed separately Gross Value attributable was £4.
B. London County Council Clerk of Works Office.
Wooden sectional hut with wood roof covered by tarred felt, wood floor on sleepers. Dimensions: 11' 9? by 14' 3?, area 167 square feet. Dismantled on 16th July, 1951. If assessed separately Gross Value attributable was £6.
C. Cement Store.
Corrugated iron sides and roof with concrete floor. Dimensions: 9' by 14', area 126 square feet. Dismantled on 30th June, 1951. If assessed separately Gross Value attributable was £5.
D. Canteen and Store.
Wooden sectional hut with wood roof covered by tarred felt, wooden floor, standing on old roadway or playground site. Dimensions: 14' 10? by 30', area 445 square feet. Dismantled on 30th June, 1951. If assessed separately the Gross Value attributable was £17.
E. Plumbers' Store.
Corrugated iron sides and roof, standing on old roadway or playground site. Dimensions: 8' by 12', area 96 square feet. Dismantled on 30th June, 1951. If assessed separately the Gross Value attributable was £3.
It was agreed in this case that the London County Council Clerk of Works Office should not be included in the hereditament and that in consequence the Gross Value should, if the huts were held to be rateably occupied, be £29, Rateable Value £20. Huts A, C, D and E will be referred to hereinafter as 'the said huts.'
The said huts were erected on the actual building site, no particular area of which was set aside for that purpose. The Contractors chose where to erect each of the said huts on the building site. The said huts were used for the following purposes:—
A. General Foreman's and Timekeeper's Office.
This was where the General Foreman kept his drawings and the Timekeeper his books. One or two implements—a theodolite and various odds and ends of builders' materials were stored here. The Office was not used for anything except work in connection with building the school. It was moved once during the course of building operations from one position to another on the building site.
C. Cement store.
This was used solely for the storage of cement.
D. Canteen and Store.
This contained forms and a table; electric light was laid on; and there was a stove fixed in the corner, with a pipe through the roof, for heating water and for tea. There were no other cooking facilities, and no food was provided there.
E. Plumbers' Store.
This was used solely for the storage of plumbers' goods.
The tools, builders' materials and cement referred to in the last preceding sub-paragraph hereof were brought on to the building site solely for the purposes of the said contract.
The said huts were locked by the Contractors each night and the keys were kept by the Contractors' foreman. The Clerk of Works could demand admission to the said huts at any time but as the keys were in the possession of the Contractors he could only enter the said huts when admitted by the Foreman or other employee of the Contractors."
The decision of the Lands Tribunal was that they were unable to find any distinction between this case and that of Woodward (Valuation Officer) v. Brading and Blundell Limited and Others (1951) 44 R. and I.T. 758.
The decision of the Lands Tribunal in Woodward (Valuation Officer) v. Brading and Blundell Ltd. and Others (supra) also related to various structures described as "builder's huts" which had been erected by builders on sites where they were carrying out work. In its decision in that case, the Lands Tribunal referred to sections 21 and 68 of the Rating and Valuation Act 1925, and to the Rating and Valuation Acts (Form of Valuation List) Rules, 1932, and continued:—
"We think it follows that the primary question for our decision … is whether the 'builder's huts' described are within the description of 'lands, tenements, hereditaments or property which are or may become liable to any rate …' so as to constitute a 'hereditament' of which the prescribed particulars should be inserted in the valuation list."
The Lands Tribunal then referred to the decision of the Divisional Court in Mitchell Brothers, Limited v. Worksop Union (1904), 1 Konstam's Rating Appeals 181, 69 J.P. 53, 92 L.T. 62, 21 T.L.R. 156 and to the decisions of the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal in John Laing and Son, Limited v. Assessment Committee for Kingswood Assessment Area [1948] 2 K.B. 116, [1949] 1 K.B. 344, quoted the definition of the "four factors or ingredients of rateability" submitted by Counsel (Mr. Michael Rowe, Q.C.) and adopted by the Court of Appeal in the last-mentioned case as set out in the judgment of Mr. Justice Jenkins (as he then was) at page 357, and stated its conclusions as follows:—
"We are satisfied, on the facts submitted to us, not only that the buildings which are the subjects of these appeals are of rateable types, but that each of the ratepayers had actual possession and an exclusive beneficial occupation for the purpose of carrying out the respective contract; and, furthermore, that the possession by the ratepayers in each of the cases had a sufficient quality of permanence to justify the valuation officer in making his proposal."
The Lands Tribunal also rejected a contention put forward by the ratepayers
"that the various buildings were 'plant' in the sense of that word as used in Section 24 [of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925], so as not to be rateable …"
The question stated in the present case by the Lands Tribunal for the decision of the Court of Appeal was "whether we came to a correct decision in law, and if not, what should be done in the premises." In their Notice of Motion in the Court of Appeal the Appellants stated that the grounds upon which they contended that the determination and decision of the Lands Tribunal was erroneous in point of law were that the Lands Tribunal was wrong in law in holding:—
(1) that the hereditament was capable of beneficial occupation;
(2) that the occupation of the said hereditament was sufficiently permanent to give rise to rateable occupation;
(3) that the said hereditament was rateably occupied by the contractors.
The Court of Appeal held that, apart from the question (with which the case of John Laing and Son Limited v. Assessment Committee for Kingswood Assessment Area (supra) did not deal) whether these huts were in the nature of chattels as distinct from being part of the hereditament consisting of the structure itself and the area of land supporting it, this case was governed by Laing's case. They further held that the structures were not chattels standing upon the land but were structures which, while they remained on the land, were for the purposes of raring...
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