Cinderella Rockerfellas Ltd v Valuation Officer

A floating vessel may form part of a rateable hereditament with land covered by water although it remains a chattel. The question is whether the vessel and land are enjoyed as a single unit of occupation and whether the ordinary requirements of actual, exclusive, beneficial and sufficiently permanent occupation are met.

Water between the vessel and riverbed does not prevent occupation. A direct vertical attachment to the bed is unnecessary where a vessel is permanently secured to adjacent land within the same hereditament and is confined to a licensed area of riverbed. Exclusivity is a question of fact and does not depend on an exclusive legal title.

The appellant operated a nightclub from the Tuxedo Royale, a former ferry moored at Hillgate Quay on the River Tyne. It occupied the vessel under licences concerning the foreshore and riverbed, and occupied the adjoining quay under leases. The vessel remained at its berth for about nine years, subject to tidal movement and one brief removal, and was secured to the quay by ropes and chains.

The Tyne and Wear Valuation Tribunal directed the deletion of entries for the vessel and associated riverbed because it considered the vessel not rateable. The Lands Tribunal allowed the valuation officer’s consolidated appeals and held that the vessel was rateable. The company appealed on the ground that a floating vessel without a direct connection to the riverbed could not occupy, or be enjoyed with, the land beneath it.

1. The appeal was dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice Potter gave the leading judgment. Lord Justice Chadwick and Lord Justice Tuckey agreed.

2. A rateable hereditament may comprise land and a chattel which is enjoyed with the land and enhances its value. The chattel need not lose its character as a chattel. The governing inquiry was whether there was a unit of rateable occupation, applying the four requirements of actual occupation, factual exclusivity, benefit and sufficient permanence.

3. The appellant actually occupied the licensed riverbed. The vessel’s permanent presence over that defined area was sufficient, notwithstanding the intervening water. Direct moorings embedded in the riverbed were not essential. Its horizontal attachment to the adjoining quay, which formed part of the same hereditament, confined it to the licensed riverbed and enabled that land to provide permanent support through the water.

4. The other requirements were plainly met. The occupation was valuable to the appellant and sufficiently permanent. It was exclusive in fact because no competing rights were granted or exercised. The licence’s reservation of rights did not alter that conclusion, since any further grant could not prevent the vessel’s placing and maintenance.

5. Scottish and Hong Kong decisions turned on materially different statutory tests. They did not displace the English law of rateable occupation. In particular, a requirement of a high degree of mutual adaptation between a floating vessel and its berth was not part of the applicable English test.

6. The Lands Tribunal had correctly held the vessel, riverbed and associated land to be a rateable hereditament. The appellant was ordered to pay the respondent’s appeal costs, subject to detailed assessment if not agreed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the company’s appeal and upheld the rateability of the floating nightclub and the associated riverbed.

2. Lands Tribunal: on 13 June 2002, allowed the valuation officer’s consolidated appeals and held that the vessel was rateable.

3. Tyne and Wear Valuation Tribunal: directed deletion of the relevant valuation-list entries on the basis that the vessel was not rateable.