Rating and Valuation Act 1925

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved
Citation1925 c. 90


Rating and Valuation Act, 1925

(15 & 16 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 90.

An Act to simplify and amend the law with respect to the making and collection of rates by the consolidation of rates and otherwise, to promote uniformity in the valuation of property for the purpose of rates, to amend the law with respect to the valuation of machinery and certain other classes of properties, and for other purposes incidental to or connected with the matters aforesaid.

[22nd December 1925]

B e it enacted by, the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

I Rating.

Part I.

Rating.

S-1 Rating authorities.

1 Rating authorities.

(1) The council of every county borough and the council of every urban and rural district shall be the rating authority for the borough or for the county district, and from and after the appointed day no authority or person other than the council shall have power to make or levy any rate within the borough or district.

(2) As from the appointed day all powers and duties of the overseers of the poor in relation to the making, levying, and collection of rates, and of any other person who by virtue of any local Act has powers in that behalf, shall in every rating area be exercised and performed by the rating authority.

(3) Every rating authority shall for the purposes of their powers and duties under this Act (other than the power of appointing persons to act as members of an assessment committee) have the same power with respect to the appointment and authorisation of committees as they have under section two hundred of the Public Health Act, 1875 . or subsection (1) of section fifty-six of the Local Government Act, 1894 , as the case may be, for the purposes of the Acts relating to the public health.

(4) In the case of a rural rating area the parish council of every parish or group of parishes, and the parish meeting of every parish not under a parish council, shall be entitled to appoint two persons, being local government electors, to act as members of the rating authority, or of any committee appointed by that authority in pursuance of this section, so far as regards the exercise or performance in connection with property in that parish or group of parishes of any powers or duties of the rating authority under Part II. of this Act, and the persons so appointed shall, for that purpose, but not for any other purpose, be deemed to be members of the rating authority or committee, as the case may be.

S-2 Levy of, and provisions as to, general rate.

2 Levy of, and provisions as to, general rate.

(1) As from the date of the first new valuation, the rating authority of each urban rating area, in lieu of the poor rate and any other rate which they have power to make, shall make and levy for their area a consolidated rate which shall be termed ‘the general rate.’

(2) As from the appointed day the rating authority of each rural rating area shall, in lieu of making a poor rate for each parish, make and levy a general rate for the whole of the district.

(3) Subject to the provisions of this Act, every general rate shall be a rate at a uniform amount per pound on the rateable value of each hereditament in the rating area, and shall be made, levied and collected, and shall be recoverable, in the same manner in which at the commencement of this Act the poor rate may be made, levied, collected and recovered, and all the enactments relating to the poor rate which are in force at the commencement of this Act, including (subject to the provisions of this Act) enactments relating to appeals against a poor rate, shall, so far as not repealed by this Act, apply to the general rate:

Provided that—

( a ) In the case of any general rate made in a rural rating area in respect of any period before the date of the first new valuation, the rating authority shall, notwithstanding anything in this subsection, give effect in the collection of the rate to any exemption or abatement to which any person would have been entitled in respect of any hereditament if the rate had been a poor rate; and

( b ) notwithstanding anything in the Distress for Rates Act, 1849 , the justices shall not issue a warrant of commitment in default of distress for non-payment of the general rate against any person who proves to their satisfaction that his failure to pay is due to circumstances beyond his control, but where the justices in pursuance of this provision refuse to issue a warrant the rating authority may, unless the justices at the time of so refusing think fit to remit the payment of the rate (which they are hereby authorised to do), subsequently renew the application for a warrant of commitment on the ground that the circumstances of the person have changed.

(4) A rating authority shall have power to reduce or remit the payment of any general rate on account of the poverty of any person liable to the payment thereof.

(5) Where any amount, other than an amount which falls to be raised by means of a special rate under this Part of this Act, is, by virtue of any precept or otherwise, chargeable separately on any part of a rating area, the rating authority shall levy that amount on that part of the area together with, and as an additional item of, the general rate.

(6) Expenses incurred under the Public Libraries Acts, 1892 to 1919, by the library authority (not being a county council) of a library district being a parish shall, instead of being defrayed out of a rate raised in manner provided by paragraph ( c ) of subsection (1) of section eighteen of the Public Libraries Act, 1892 , be levied in the library district by the rating authority together with, and as an additional item of, the general rate.

(7) Section one hundred and thirty-three of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845 (which provides that until the completion of the works the promoters of the undertaking shall make good any deficiency of poor rate caused by the lands being taken), shall have effect as though for the references therein to the poor's rate there were substituted references to the general rate, and as though the amount required to be made good by the promoters of the undertaking were in the case of lands situate in an urban rating area one-half of the deficiency in the several assessments to the general rate.

The assessment on which any payment made by promoters under the said section is based shall be inserted in the valuation list and any such payment shall be taken into account for the purpose of ascertaining the proceeds of any rate.

(8) The provisions of this Act relating to the general rate shall apply to any consolidated rate, by whatever name called, made for any area under any local Act on or after the date of the first new valuation.

(9) Every hereditament in the rating area, whether liable to be rated or not, shall be included in every rate in the rate book.

S-3 Levy of, and provisions as to, special rate in rural district.

3 Levy of, and provisions as to, special rate in rural district.

(1) As from the appointed day the rating authority of each rural rating area shall, in lieu of any rate in respect of expenditure under the Lighting and Watching Act, 1833 , and of any rate in respect of special expenses under the Acts relating to public health, make and levy in each part of the area which is liable to be separately rated in respect of any such expenditure or in respect of any such special expenses a separate rate which shall be termed ‘a special rate’:

Provided that, where the amount of any such expenditure, or of any such expenses, for any half-year falling to be raised by means of a special rate chargeable on any part of the area is less than ten pounds, or is so small that a general rate of less than one penny in the pound would be sufficient to produce the amount of that expenditure or of those expenses, that amount shall not be levied by a special rate, but shall be levied in that part of the area together with, and as an additional item of, the general rate.

In this subsection the expression ‘half-year’ means the period of six months expiring on the thirty-first day of March or the thirtieth day of September.

(2) Subject to the express provisions of this Act as to special rates, all the provisions of this Act relating to the general rate shall apply to a special rate, except that the owner of any tithe or tithe rentcharge and the occupier of any woodlands, or of any land covered with water or used as a canal or as a towing-path for a canal or as a railway constructed under the powers of any Act of Parliament for public conveyance, and, until the date of the first new valuation, the occupier of any agricultural land, shall be liable to pay in respect of one-fourth part only of the rateable value of the tithe, tithe rentcharge, woodlands or land.

S-4 Operation and incidence of rate.

4 Operation and incidence of rate.

(1) Every rate made by a rating authority on or after the appointed day shall be deemed to be made on the date on which it is approved by the authority, and any enactments requiring that rates must be allowed by justices shall cease to have effect.

(2) Subject to the provisions of this section, every general rate shall be made in respect of a period commencing in the case of the first general rate made under this Part of this Act for any rural rating area on the appointed day, in the case of the first general rate so made for any...

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