Application for new lease of Uxbridge lock-up shop — Evidence of increase in rental values since 1940
His Honour Judge Herbert Baxter at Uxbridge County Court on Tuesday, July 31, heard an application under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, by Mrs A Jefferys, grocer, of 16a, Cowley Road, Uxbridge, for a new lease of the lock-up shop at that address.
Mr G Hartley, for the applicant, said the present 21 years’ lease would expire in September. The present rent was £65 a year. The application was for a 14 years’ lease at £150 per annum.
The former rateable value on this shop, said Mr Bedford J Leno, ARICS, AAI, of Messrs John Bedford & Co, estate agents, of Uxbridge, was £26. That figure had been increased to £52 rateable. A fair rental on this figure was £150.
He quoted rentals of comparable property. These were £150, £200, £80, £190, and £450.
The display frontage was 6 ft, out of a total of 12 ft 10 in.
His opinion was that the new rating assessments would have a detrimental effect on rentals.
The Respondent’s Case
Mr JP Hutton, managing director of Hutton Investment, Ltd, the respondents to the application, gave particulars of rentals of shops owned by his company.
Speaking of the butcher’s shop next to the applicant’s grocery, he said this property was let at £260, rising to £300, to the father of the present occupier — a great friend of his to whom a personal discretion was exercised. This shop had a flat over.
Rents of shop property in Uxbridge had tended to rise considerably, said Mr Hutton. The increase had been anything from 33 1/3 to 50 per cent since 1940.
He also told his counsel, Mr JE Aylett, that if the applicant’s shop were put into the market, to be let to any trade, it would easily bring in a rent of £250.
“My valuation is £235 rental,” said Mr Ian Leno, of Messrs H&B Leno, estate agents, of Uxbridge. He was surprised to see shop property with such a low assessment for rating. He had found no consistency in rating and valuation figures, and as he was not impressed with the lettings of comparable properties, he had used other factors in arriving at his assessment.
His Honour: You don’t think much of rateable values, and are not impressed by lettings of neighbouring premises?
Mr Leno interposed to explain how he had arrived at a value of £1 per sq ft for the fore-part and 10s per sq ft for the rear part of No 16a, based on current demands.
The Judge commented that current demand and supply got translated in comparable property in the area. He asked what clients were willing to pay.
Mr Leno said he had not the figures for shops in this particular area, but in the High Street he had negotiated a rent of £550 for a shop with a flat above, at the extreme end of the street. Rents up to £1,000 a year were not uncommon.
Since 1940, he said in reply to the Judge, rents had gone up considerably — 200 to 300 per cent. “Maybe 300 per cent” he added, with the remark “I don’t like to generalise in this way.”
His Honour said that in 1935 the rent of this grocery shop was £65 a year. Mr Hutton had said rents had gone up by 33 1/3 to 50 per cent. That would bring this rent up to £100 a year. Mr Ian Leno had said the increases were from 200 to 300 per cent — that meant a rental of £130 to £162. Even at 300 per cent the rental would be £195.
His Honour added that it would be unwise to follow rateable value slavishly, but generally speaking, rateable assessments were made on a fairly consistent standard.
He decided that a fair rental for this shop was £160 on a lease for ten years.
The lease, he added, would not be granted until the repairs set out in the schedule of dilapidations had been carried out to the agreement of the parties.
