Morecambe and Heysham Corporation v Robinson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Holroyd Pearce,LORD JUSTICE HARMAN |
| Judgment Date | 07 February 1961 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1961] EWCA Civ J0207-2 |
| Date | 07 February 1961 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
In the Matter of the Local Government Act, 1958
In the Matter of the Rating and Valuation Acts, 1925 to 1957
In the Matter of an Appeal from the North Lancashire Local Valuation Court
(Valuation Officer)
[1961] EWCA Civ J0207-2
Lord Justice Holroyd Pearce.
Lord Justice Harman and
Mr Justice Sacrs.
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Mr DAVID G. WIDDICOMBE (instructed by Messrs Sharp, Pritchard & Co., Agents for Mr Roger Rosa, Town Clerk) appeared on behalf of the Appellants.
Sir DEREK WALKER-SMITH, Q.C., and Mr J. RAYMOND PHILLIPS (instructed by The Solicitor of Inland Revenue) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
: The Local Valuation Court confirmed an assessment of £1,750 rateable value on the heroditement occupied by the Borough of Morocambe and Heysham in the County of Lancaster, It consists of the foreshore, sea-wall, esplanade, ornamental gardens and shelters and various ontertainment facilities. The Borough appealed to the Lands Tribunal, on that appeal both parties took the view that the correct basis of assessment for the hereditament with which we are concerned should be the profits basis, and that the parcontage on tonants capital should be 15 per cent. Many figures and calculations wore given in evidence, and these are act out In the Decision. In the end, after various concessions, the Valuation Off a figures would, on a strict profits basis, have produced a rateable value of £1,285. The Borough's figures showed a deficit and would have produced a nil valuation. After careful investigation the Tribunal came to conclusions on all the various disputed items of receipts and expenditure save the capital value of the dock chairs, and on that item it gave sufficient indication to enable one to say that on a strict profits basis the assessment would be somewhere about £600 or possibly as high as £700. Instead of adopting that figure or nil or tho Valuation Officer's figure of £1,265 the Tribunal made an assessment of £1,000. The reason for this is given in the Decision.
At page 9 the Decision refers to passages in the ovidence of Mr. stiles, the export withness for the Revenue, and centinues: "In the case of ( London County Council v. Erith Churchwardens 1893) Appeal Cases at page 591, Lord Herschell said 'the possibility of making a pecuniary profit is not the test whether the occupation is of valno' As to whather the occupation is beneficial, It can be inferred from the brochure pubilished by the appellants that the amenities offered by the hereditament are of prime importance to the Town, a fact which is further emphasised in the following excerpt from the preamble to the Morecambo Corporation Act, 1928:- 'And whereas the prosperity of the borough as proposed to bo altered as a. health resort is largely dependent upon the preservation of the enities of the sea front and for that purpose it is necessary that the wall and promenade described in this Act should be constructed and it is therefore expedient that the Corporation should be empowered to make and maintain the same together with the other works authorised by this Act'.
"It is clear from Mr Stiles's evidence that nil or exiguous profits from this kind of undertaking are by no means rare, and that in such circumstances the consideration of accounts would appear to be superfluous. I think, however, that when a figure has to be agreed between rating surveyors their minds would bo conditioned by the degres of loss or profit (however small) and to that extent a comparison of account would be made, and the assessments agreed would disclose at least some relationship to the financial aspect of ths undertaking".
And at page 12; "The fundamental matter of principle in this case is whether there is a point in the scale of proved profits below which the actual figures cease to be the basis of assessment because they arc clearly less than the true value to the tenant. It is my view that there is, and that it has been reached in this case. Mr Stiles's figures in Valuation C. must be amended by increasing the administrative expenditure and the tenant's share, and the wages increase is too little. The result would be to bring the rateable value below £1,000, and still lower, if the wages and upkeep of gardens and shelters are included. I am quite satisfied from a study of the literature In this case that the value. of the foreshore and promenade amenities to the Town of Morecambo is such that tho Corporation would bo prepared to suffer a moderate loss, rather than permit this hereditament to remain unlet and -unmanaged. I am quite sure that in hypothetical negotiations between a landlord and a tenant, this fact would have its effect upon the rental value agreed".
Mr Wlddicombe for the appellant Borough puts forward two grounds in support of the appeal. The first la that the Tribunal acted beyond its powers In making an assessment above tho amount which would on a profits basis be produced by the figures of the Valuation Officer as diminisged by the Tribunal's findings, when the parties had agreed that the assessment should rust on a profits basis. Having regard to that agreement, he argues, the Lands Tribunal cannot depart from the strict profits basis; and in doing so it misconceived its function. For it is not the body empowered to settle the true assessment of the hereditamentj it is merely empowered to hoar and determine the appeal having regard to the contentions of the parties.
Thoro are two statutes from which the Lands Tribunal derives its jurisdiction. by section 48 (4) of the Local Government Act 1948 "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 bo well founded". By soction 49 (1) the County Court to whom appeal then lay "may give any directions which the local Valuation Court might have given". By the Lands Tribunal Act 1949 section 1 (3) "there shall be referred to the Lands Tribunal .… (e) any question on which but for this provision an appeal or reference to the County Court would or might be made by virtue of section 49 … of the Local Government Act 1948".
In my judgment tho word "contention" refers to the figure aimed at and not to the various legal or factual arguments on which the applicants base their case. The Tribunal cannot go outside the upper and lower financial limits of the figures contended for on tho appeal (see Ellery v. Marsh, 1954, volume 2 Queen's Bench Division, pago 357) and in the present case it did not do so. But it is not bound in arriving at the correct figure to adopt the arguments of or the figures submitted by one side or the other provided that it does not travel outside the above limits and provided that there is evidence before it on which it can arrive at its conclusion. It should however give the parties proper opportunity to deal with any points on which it-bases its decision. In Sheffield v. Meadow Dalry Co. '( 1958) volume 51 Rating and Income Tax Cases, page 233, both parties agreed that the contest was on the basis of a certain valuation. One witness gave evidence on a different basis and that basis was accepted by the Tribunal. This court affirmed the Tribunal's decision. Lord Evershed (Master of the Rolls) there said at pago 236; "I am not myself persuaded that the putting in of these valuations and in this case the addition: of the opening speech of the Solicitors for the 'fating Authority have the result of binding the parties as though there were here pleadings containing some admission of a relevant allegation on the part of the plaintiff or his equivalent".
( Rox v. City of Westminster 1941 volume 1 King's Bench Division, page 53) doalt with a hearing by an Assessment Committee where somewhat different considerations arise, and it is therefore not directly in point; but Lord Justice Du Parcq there made certain general observations at page 70; "Even in courts of law it is not a principle of universal application that the court must give Judgment for any sum, or make any order, on which the parties are agreed. We know of no case where the public interest, or, as here, the interest of a considerable section of the public, will be affoeted by the order, in which the court is bound, or oven entitled, to accept an agreed figure without the slightost investigation or examination. Nor is it true to say, in our view, that any tribunal is necessarily bound to accept evidence which is uncontradictcd, or unchallenged, or 'all one way. When the particular case of an assessment committee hearing an objection is considered, it seems to us to be impossible to maintain that the figure agreed upon by the persons appearing before it, and supported by their witnesses, must be accepted without question". And at the bottom of page 70: "The assessment of the rent which a hypothetical tenant will pay is not an exact science. The hypothetical tenant is, after all1, only the reasonable man in one of his aspects; and although surveyors may know more than most people about the workings of the tenant's mind, and the effect of such a catastrophe as a great war upon the estate market, they have not a monopoly of wisdom. Even a tribunal inexperienced in rating matter; hearing a statement which is almost inevitably a compound of fact, inference, argument and conjecture, might be excused if it did not accept all the conclusions of the expert. Here, however, we are considering the duty of a tribunal ct exports, who may take the view that the two experts whom they have heard are wrong. It is not, we hope,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Hoare v National Trust; National Trust v Spratling
- Attorney General v British Broadcasting Corporation ; Same v Hat Trick Productions Ltd
-
Attorney General v British Broadcasting Corporation
...of documents; and that its members may rely upon their own knowledge, as well as upon the evidence and argument. ( Morecambe & Heysham Corporation v. Robinson [1961] 1 All E.R. 721, per Holroyd-Pearce L.J. at p.724). They are, of course, expected to discharge their functions in accordance ......
- Aluwihare (Vo) v Mfi Properties Ltd