Council tax – Valuation – Residential property – Respondent converting listed building from two dwellings to single dwelling – Listing officer refusing to alter valuation list for council tax with one entry for entire property – Valuation tribunal allowing respondent’s appeal – Whether tribunal erring in law – Appeal dismissed
The property known as 9–11 Ebenezer Road, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3BS was constructed in around 1790. It was in a conservation area, was grade II listed and built as one dwelling, on three floors. However, the property had been converted into two dwellings and was listed as two separate units (hereditaments) when the valuation list for council tax was drawn up in 1993. The two units were in different tax bands.
In 2014, the respondent and her husband purchased the entire property and obtained planning permission and listed building consent for a change of use to a single dwelling, together with alterations and extensions, subject to severe restrictions because of its status as a listed building. They installed a laundry/utility room on the lower ground floor, in place of the previous kitchen and bathroom, and created a new staircase to improve the access between the utility room and the ground floor kitchen. They demolished a small modern extension, installed a new bathroom and converted the sitting room into a bedroom. The original staircase to the ground floor was retained but the partition wall removed to give open access into the ground floor.
Upon completion of the works, the respondent applied to the appellant listing officer to alter the valuation list to show one entry for the entire property. However, the appellant replaced the two original entries with two new entries, taking the view that the lower ground floor was a self-contained unit.
On the respondent’s appeal, the Valuation Tribunal for England ordered the listing officer to alter the valuation list to show one entry for the whole property. The appellant appealed, contending that the tribunal had erred in law by: (i) determining that the lower ground floor was not a self-contained unit on the basis that the utility room was the laundry room for the whole house; and (ii) relying upon the fact the building was grade II listed and could not be adapted for use as conventional living accommodation.
The appeal was dismissed.
(1) As a general rule, for rating purposes, a hereditament was a unit of property which was self-contained and within the same curtilage, and occupied by the same person. A single domestic hereditament was treated as a single dwelling, for the purpose of council tax, unless it was treated as two or more dwellings pursuant to subsection 3(5) and the Council Tax (Chargeable Dwellings) Order 1992. Article 2 defined “single property” and “self-contained unit”. It was common ground that the application of the legislative test was a matter of fact and judgment for the specialist tribunal. One was concerned with what had physically been constructed on the ground (an objective or “bricks and mortar” approach) and not with the subjective intention of the builder. The physical characteristics of the building included physical facilities installed for essential living functions such as cooking, washing and laundry: Corkish v Wright [2014] EWHC 237 (Admin) and Woolway v Mazars [2015] UKSC 53; [2015] EGLR 56 applied. Beasley v National Council of YMCAs [2000] R.A. 429, McColl v Listing Officer [2001] EWHC 712 (Admin), Clement v Bryant [2003] EWHC 422 (Admin), Coleman v Rotsztein [2003] EWHC 1057 (Admin), Williams v Royal National Institute for the Blind [2003] EWHC 1308 (Admin), Jorgensen v Gomperts [2006] EWHC Admin 1885, Daniels (Listing Officer) v Aristides [2006] EWHC 3052 (Admin) and Ramsay v Commissioners of HM Revenue and Customs [2013] UKUT 0226 (TCC) considered.
(2) The relevant physical characteristics of the building in this case included, in addition to the external structure, the two external doors, the internal layout of the premises, including the separate floors, the open staircases between each floor, and the second staircase linking the kitchen and utility room, bathrooms on each floor, the installation of a lower ground floor utility room, the installation of a ground floor kitchen, with a range of fitted cupboards, cooker, sink and dishwasher but no space or facilities for a washing machine or tumble dryer and the absence of a kitchen and any cooking facilities on the lower ground floor.
It was apparent from that list that the tribunal was required to consider the physical characteristics of the whole house and was entitled to take into account the fact that the lower ground floor held the communal laundry facilities for the whole house. Although the manner in which the building was being used by particular occupiers was clearly not the legislative test, evidence of actual use might properly be considered. Thus, it was permissible for the tribunal to have regard to the evidence that the house was in use as a single household, whose sole kitchen facilities were on the ground floor and sole laundry facilities on the lower ground floor. Furthermore, the tribunal had gone on to apply the correct legislative test which focused on the use for which the building had been physically constructed or adapted, not the way in which it was actually using it. The fact that there were major restrictions on changes to the construction and layout of the building because of its grade II listing was a potentially relevant part of the evidential background which the panel was entitled to take into account when examining the physical characteristics of the building and asking itself the question whether the building had been “constructed or adapted for use as separate living accommodation”.
(3) On a fair reading of the decision, the members of the panel had correctly directed themselves in law. Accordingly, the tribunal was entitled to conclude, on the evidence before it, that the way in which the building had been adapted for use meant that the utility room was not available for separate and exclusive use as a kitchen, as part of a separate self-contained unit on the lower ground floor. That was a multi-factorial exercise of fact-finding and judgment by a specialist tribunal with which the court should be slow to interfere. In the circumstances, it was not appropriate to set aside or remit the decision merely because the evidence and factual findings were not fully recorded in the decision.
Matthew Donmall (instructed by HM Revenue & Customs) appeared for the appellant; Luke Wilcox (instructed by Streeter Marshall) appeared for the respondent.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
Click here to read transcript: Coll (listing officer) v Mooney
