Valuation officer valuing portion of composite hereditaments used for domestic use – Whether method used legally open to valuation officer – Valuation tribunal and High Court holding valuation officer entitled to use method – Court of Appeal dismissing appeals
For the purposes of council tax the valuer calculated the portion of the domestic use in relation to composite hereditaments. The composite hereditaments were farmhouses. In each case the valuer applied the assumptions set out in regulation 6 of the Council Tax (Situation and Valuation of Dwellings) Regulations 1992 and established that if each of the composite hereditaments had been sold as a separate lot in the open market by willing vendors on April 1 1991, they would have sold for an amount in the range of £300,000-£500,000 (the lotted value). On the basis that farms in that range sold for 10% more when they were sold in several lots than when they were sold as one lot, he subtracted 10% from the lotted value of each farmhouse to establish the value of the domestic use of the composite hereditament within regulation 7 of the 1992 Regulations. It was common ground that the valuer did not, in the case of each hereditament, establish where in the range of £300,000-£500,000 each hereditament fell and that he was content merely to note that it was in the range within which the 10% effect was observable.
The plaintiffs contended that regulation 7(1) required the determination of the portion of the relevant amount which could reasonably be attributed to the domestic use of the dwelling and, in order to establish that portion, it was necessary first of all to establish the relevant amount. It was submitted therefore that the matter should be remitted to the valuation tribunal so that the relevant amount could be established, and then the tribunal could proceed to determine the portion thereof which could reasonably be attributed to the domestic use of the dwelling.
