Non-domestic rates – Appeals – Inspection – Valuation Tribunal for England upholding decision of respondent valuation officer to reject appellant’s proposal for reduction in rateable value of nursery premises – Appeal to Upper Tribunal – Appellant failing to comply with orders of tribunal regarding grant of access to respondent to inspect premises – Appeal struck out – Application for reinstatement – Whether failure to comply with earlier orders justifying refusal to reinstate – Application dismissed
The appellant owned a children’s nursery located on the ground floor of a block of flats in London SE11. It appealed to the Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE) against the respondent valuation officer’s rejection of its proposal to reduce the rateable value of the premises in the non-domestic rating list from £32,500 to £14,750. In its decision issued in October 2013, the VTE dismissed the appeal and confirmed the rateable value.
The appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal. In response to an application by the respondent, the registrar of the tribunal wrote to the appellant requiring it to give access for the purpose of inspecting the premises. The appellant made various requests to the registrar to reconsider, arguing that its appeal was premised in part on the fact that the respondent’s rating assessment had been made without inspecting the premises and that, by allowing the respondent to visit the premises, the tribunal would be unfairly taking her side in enabling her to “fix an error” before the hearing of the appeal.
The respondent was unsuccessful in her attempts to arrange access and, in June 2014, the registrar made a formal order requiring the appellant to permit inspection by a date in early July and providing that, in the event of non-compliance, the respondent could apply for the appeal to be struck out pursuant to the tribunal’s power in r 8(3) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) (Lands Chamber) Rules 2010. No inspection took place and, in August 2014, the registrar struck out the appellant’s appeal on the application of the respondent.
The appellant applied to reinstate its appeal. In September 2014, the tribunal ordered that the application should be heard in October 2014 and that, before that date, the appellant was to grant access to the respondent, failing which the application for reinstatement was likely to be refused. However, no further communication was received from the appellant and no access was given. The tribunal gave a decision in the light of that position.
Held: The application was dismissed.
Parties were required by r 2(4)(b) of the 2010 Rules to co-operate with the tribunal generally. By r 8(3), the tribunal had power to strike out the whole or part of proceedings if a party had failed to comply with a direction stating that failure to comply with the direction could lead to the striking out of the proceedings or part of them, or if the appellant, applicant or claimant had failed to co-operate with the tribunal to such an extent that the tribunal could not deal with the proceedings fairly and justly.
There were clear grounds for striking out the appeal in the instant case. Appeals to the tribunal in rating matters were conducted as a re-hearing of the entirety of the case considered by the VTE. It was therefore necessary that both parties be in a position to present factual and expert evidence about the appeal premises. Given the number of premises in the rating list, and as the appellant had itself pointed out, the original rating assessment was likely to have been compiled on the basis of information supplied by the ratepayer without the valuation officer undertaking any inspection. For the valuation officer to be able to prepare a valuation of the premises, and to prepare to give evidence at the appeal, it was essential that she be provided with an adequate opportunity to inspect the appeal premises.
By consistently refusing to comply with the tribunal’s directions requiring access to be provided for the respondent to inspect, the appellant had put the tribunal in a position where it could not deal fairly and justly with the proceedings. Both in the terms of the registrar’s order of June 2014, and in the tribunal’s order of September 2014, the appellant had been given ample warning of the consequences of non-compliance. Although the appellant had not appeared to support its own application, there was no reason to doubt that it had received the September 2014 order. There was accordingly no alternative but to dismiss its application.
The appellant did not appear and was not represented.
Sally Dobson, barrister
Read a transcript of Lambeth Walk Nursery Ltd vs Bravo (VO) here
