Salisbury and Another v Valuation Tribunal of England
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Sir Ross Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 05 November 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] EWHC 3136 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | No. CO/1940/2021 |
[2021] EWHC 3136 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Sir Ross Cranston
No. CO/1940/2021
Mr L. Wilcox (instructed by Swinburne Maddison, Durham) appeared on behalf of the Appellants.
Ms S. Sackman appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
Introduction
The appellants appeal the decision of the Valuation Tribunal for England (“the Tribunal”) issued on 4 May 2021 to dismiss their appeal against the Listing Officer's decision that their home at 24 Lathbury Road Oxford (“the Property”) contains two self-contained units, which are now listed separately for the purposes of Council tax. No permission is required for appeals from the Tribunal to this court, but they are confined to errors of law. The appellants contend that there are three errors of law in the Tribunal's decision. The respondent's case is that this is a merits appeal dressed up as an error of law challenge.
Background
The appellants own the Property which is a large semi-detached town house in North Oxford. It was built in 1908. The Property comprises accommodation on the ground, first, and second floors. The upper floors have always been accessed from a single centre staircase and a single front door. In 1974 the property was divided into three self-contained flats. The appellants purchased the property in 1985 and began restoring it to its original state as a single house. All internal partitions were removed except a fire door to the second floor, which was required by fire regulations.
In 1993 the Property was entered as a single dwelling at Valuation Band H on the compilation of the Council Tax Valuation List. A year later, in October 1994, the Property was split into two assessments, the main house at Valuation Band E and the flat on the second floor at Valuation Band A. Legal proceedings were commenced by the appellants, but compromised, and the agreement in July 1996 between the appellants and the Listing Officer reconstituted the property into a single-entry in the Council Tax Valuation List at Valuation Band G.
In April 2019 Oxford City Council, the billing authority for the area, raised a report to the Valuation Office Agency. It detailed the comments of the Council's inspector following a visit in January 2019. That report was as follows:
“The house is occupied by the appellants who for some time now have been letting out the bedrooms on the top floor of the house which whilst currently empty is going to be occupied soon. … I have visited the flat on the second floor of the house this morning accessed by the community hallways of the Property. In my mind it is without doubt a self-contained unit.”
On the basis of that information, in July 2019 the Listing Officer altered the Council Tax Valuation List to disaggregate the property. With effect from that date the main house was shown at Valuation Band G and the flat was shown at Valuation Band B. Later that month the appellants challenged the decision to disaggregate. The respondent confirmed in September that no alteration to the Council Tax valuation list would be made, and an appeal was made to the Tribunal.
Appeal to the Tribunal
The first appellant's statement of case before the Tribunal explained how, in effect, the central staircase of the Property opens on the first floor to a landing; how that landing was in 1985 restored to its original room size and fitted with furniture and (then novel) home computer equipment; and how since then it has been in continuous use as a private study or office. The first appellants' case explained that this was convenient because it was away from the public rooms on the ground floor and permitted the appellants to use it for their private affairs. Occasionally, they explained, it was used as a playroom, formerly by the appellants' children and by then by their grandchildren.
After accepting that the bricks and mortar test based on the physical attributes of the accommodation was the correct test to apply, the appellants' case made three main points by way of submission. First, the first-floor landing was used as a living-room. Because it was used for access to rooms in the house did not mean, it was said, that no other use for it could be relevant or that thereby it ceased to be a living room. Secondly, the first-floor landing had been in constant use as a living-room since the appellants had bought the house in 1985 and had always been furnished as an office. In 1985 – appellants' case continued — it was made the principal entry point for IT services and that remained the case. It was the electronic hub of the house.
Thirdly, the appellants' case contended, owing to the private nature of the use of the landing it was unconscionable that the second floor of the house could be considered to be anything other than part of the house. Those allowed occasionally to occupy the second floor were friends coming to Oxford to study.
After outlining the background and the law, the Tribunal noted that there was no dispute between the parties as to the Property's particulars. In summary these were that the Property was a three-storey semi-detached house — the ground floor consisting of an entrance, a hallway, a sitting room, a playroom, a breakfast room, a scullery, a food prep space and a larder. On the first floor there were landings, one (the one used as an office) and two (ancillary to the first), and bedrooms one to four, and bathrooms one and two. On the second floor there was landing three, a store, a kitchen, bedrooms five and six and bathroom three. In the course of this judgement when I refer to “the landing”, I am referring to what, in the description, is landing one which is at the top of the staircase on the first floor.
The Tribunal then considered an issue as to the lawfulness of the 2019 alteration, which is no longer at issue in this case and I need say no more about it.
The Tribunal then turned, as it said, to make a factual judgment of the Property to determine whether it consisted of two self-contained units. It observed that the parties agreed that in determining whether there was one or two self-contained units at the Property, the appropriate legal test was that of “bricks and mortar” based upon the physical attributes of the Property. The Tribunal continued that the appellants did not dispute that the second floor contained a separate unit of living accommodation, but they contended that the main house was not self-contained from the upper floor — in other words the second floor — as a person would have to pass through the main house in order to access it. The Tribunal noted that the appellants relied mainly upon Batty (Listing Officer) v Merriman [1995] RA 299 in which access to an annex could only be achieved by passing through a living-room and to Ognall J's express sympathy for the taxpayers' contention that there was no separate unit. The Tribunal then said this at paragraph 58:
“The appellant contends that landing one is in fact a living-room rather than a landing. The appellant and his household use landing one as a domestic office and has been so used since 1985. He argues that landing one is sufficient(sic) large to constitute a living-room. Further, it is the electronic hub of the house being the principal point of entry for IT services.”
The Tribunal then observed that there were a number of photographs of landing one showing a desk with a computer, two chairs, a filing cabinet, a printer, a shredder as well as other cabinets and paperwork trays.
The Tribunal recorded, at paragraph 59, that the respondent's representative submitted that the landing was not a living-room and that the appellants' use of it was irrelevant when considering the bricks and mortar test. The Tribunal then said this:
“60. Having objectively considered [the] bricks and mortar test, the Tribunal Panel is satisfied that landing one is not a living-room. Stripping back the appellants' use of the room, which is irrelevant in applying a bricks and mortar test, the Tribunal Panel considered that the only basis on which it could be considered a room is because of its size but nevertheless the Tribunal Panel(sic) any objective view of the space would lead to the conclusion that it is a landing, the central space of the stairs and joining the various rooms. Whilst large, this alone was insufficient to characterise it as anything different.
“61. Following that finding that the landing one is not a living room, it naturally follows there was no impediment on access to the self-contained unit on the second floor of the kind which prompted the judge's comment in Batty v Merriman. The appellant has already conceded that the second floor has the features of a self-contained unit.
62. Accordingly the Tribunal panel finds that there are two self-contained units at the subject property.”
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Michael Stanuszek v Dawn Bunyan (Listing Officer)
...unit concerns the physical characteristics of the property, rather than the manner of its occupation (see, e.g., Salisbury v Bunyan (LO) [2022] 4 WLR 16 at § 21 Article 3 is accordingly relevant to a property that would, but for disaggregation, i.e. under ordinary principles, be treated as......