Reeves (Listing Officer) v Northrop

Rateable occupation requires actual occupation, exclusive occupation, occupation of value or benefit, and occupation that is not too transient. Duration is always an important factor in assessing permanence, but it is not invariably the sole criterion. A court or tribunal may consider other relevant circumstances, although physical mooring arrangements ordinarily have no material bearing where a vessel has occupied the same area for a substantial period. A tribunal errs in law if it treats duration as merely one factor without giving it proper significance. Where the facts are undisputed, the appellate court may apply the correct test itself and restore the relevant valuation-list entry.

Randy Northrop and his family lived aboard the vessel The Cannis, which remained in substantially the same position on the River Taw from December 2008. The Listing Officer entered it in the Council Tax Valuation List as a dwelling. The Valuation Tribunal ordered deletion of the entry, holding that the occupation was too transient.

The Listing Officer appealed on a question of law under regulation 43 of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009. The central issues were whether duration was the only relevant consideration in assessing permanence and whether the Tribunal had applied the correct legal test.

1. The appeal was allowed. The court held that the four conditions of rateable occupation are actual occupation, exclusive occupation, occupation of value or benefit, and occupation that is not too transient or sufficiently permanent.

2. The fourth condition involves an evaluative exercise. Duration of occupation is always an important factor and may be determinative in some cases, but it is not necessarily the only relevant consideration. The authorities did not support the submission that duration alone governed the issue.

3. The Valuation Tribunal erred in law. Its reasoning treated duration as merely one factor and failed to give the more than two years of substantially continuous occupation proper significance. Its reference to the overall circumstances of the mooring arrangements concerned the manner in which the vessel was secured and was immaterial to the permanent character of the occupation.

4. The Tribunal’s reference to the deletion or non-inclusion of other live-aboard craft was immaterial, but that error was not independently sufficient to dispose of the appeal. The material error was the failure to apply the correct test.

5. Remittal was unnecessary because the facts were undisputed and the court was in as good a position as the Tribunal to apply the law. The vessel had remained in a fixed position for slightly more than two years, was used as a dwelling throughout the relevant period, and was not used as a boat. That occupation was sufficiently permanent. The deleted entry was ordered to be restored.

The judgment states that the Valuation Tribunal for England ordered deletion of the entry on 17 February 2011. The Listing Officer appealed to the High Court on a question of law under regulation 43 of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal allowed; the Tribunal’s decision was set aside in substance and the valuation-list entry was restored.