The Assessor For Lothian V. Mr And Mrs K G Martin+mr A S Forrest
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judge | Lord Justice Clerk,Lord Mackay of Drumadoon,Lord Hardie |
| Judgment Date | 29 June 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] CSIH 54 |
| Court | Court of Session |
| Published date | 29 June 2010 |
| Date | 29 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | XA67/09 |
| SECOND DIVISION, INNER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION | |
| Lord Justice Clerk Lord Hardie Lord Mackay of Drumadoon | [2010] CSIH 54 XA67/09 XA68/09 OPINION OF THE LORD JUSTICE CLERK in the Appeals by THE ASSESSOR FOR LOTHIAN Appellant; against (1) MR & MRS K G MARTIN; (2) MR A S FORREST; Respondents: _______ |
(Non-Participating Party - The Respondents)
29 June 2010
Introduction
[1] The Assessor for Lothian has appealed under section 82(4) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (the 1992 Act) against a decision of the Lothian Valuation Appeal Committee dated 27 March 2009 by which it upheld appeals by Mr and Mrs K G Martin, and Mr A S Forrest against the entries of their respective houses at 29 Delta Drive and 26 Galt Road, Musselburgh at band C in the Council Tax List (the List).
[2] These houses are situated in Pinkie Brae, an extensive estate of public sector houses most of which are owned by East Lothian Council and the Scottish Special Housing Association (SSHA). There are about 900 houses on the estate. Some have been sold to sitting tenants. Of those some have since been sold on.
[3] The appeals resulted from an extensive re-assessment of council tax bandings in Musselburgh and Prestonpans with effect from October 2008 in which the assessor corrected 520 entries in the List. In the course of this exercise the assessor reclassified the houses with which we are concerned from band B to band C.
[4] I have set out the statutory framework in my Opinion in Ass for Lothian v Holland and Anor which we heard with this appeal.
The evidence
[5] The assessor's witness said that houses identical to these had originally been entered in band C. In 1994, by way of settling appeals against the valuations of these two houses, the assessor had reduced their banding to band B. That had remained the position until the re-assessment exercise to which I have referred. The assessor's witness produced evidence on similar lines to that tendered in Ass for Lothian v Holland and Anor (supra) to prove that the appropriate banding was band C. This evidence included a schedule and an analysis of 16 comparable open market sales in the immediate vicinity in the period 1990-1992.
[6] The evidence for the occupiers was based in part on evidence of sales to sitting tenants, on one specific sale in 1995 and on evidence of the generally poor state of maintenance of houses on the estate.
The decision of the Committee
[7] The Committee's decision and its reasons are set out as follows in both cases.
"The Committee considered that the assumption of a state of reasonable repair in Regulation 2(2)(d) [sc of the 1992 Regs] was to do with the individual house but that the evidence of Mr Martin and Mr Forrest about the market at the estate being depressed because of the poor state of the property in general and a lack of attention by the Council and SSHA was relevant.
The Committee accepted that the re-sales probably were improved houses. They accepted Mr Forrest's evidence on the matter. They thought him objective. He is still a tenant. They thought he had a good grasp of the value of the tenanted or unimproved properties in 1991. Mr Martin's house does not seem to have been improved. The Committee also doubted that these sixteen re-sales, or all of them, had not been available and taken into consideration at the time of...
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