Michael Stanuszek v Dawn Bunyan (Listing Officer)

The identification of separate council-tax dwellings requires the court to identify the number of hereditaments under the general principles of rating law. The test for rateable occupation is relevant but does not determine the number of hereditaments.

The primary inquiry is geographical: whether the putative hereditament forms a single unit with visual or cartographic unity. Intercommunication, including access through common parts, may be significant. A functional inquiry may unite geographically distinct spaces where use of one is necessary to the effectual enjoyment of the other. Separate possession is relevant but not determinative. The assessment requires factual judgment and professional common sense.

The appellant owned a property divided into six rooms, each occupied by a separate tenant under an assured shorthold tenancy. Each room had a bathroom and lockable door, while cooking and other facilities were shared in communal areas.

The Listing Officer entered the six rooms as separate dwellings. The Valuation Tribunal for England dismissed the appellant’s appeal, applying the four ingredients of rateable occupation and treating each room as a separate hereditament. The appellant appealed, arguing that the tribunal had applied the wrong test and had failed to apply the geographical and functional principles in Woolway (VO) v Mazars.

1. Appeal allowed. The case was remitted to a differently constituted Valuation Tribunal for England for redetermination.

2. The concepts of hereditament and rateable occupation are distinct, although linked. The VTE had conflated them by treating the ingredients of rateable occupation as determinative of whether each room was a separate hereditament. Its reliance on James v Williams did not cure that error because the existence of separate hereditaments had not been in issue in that case.

3. The applicable test is that identified in Woolway (VO) v Mazars and applied in Cardtronics UK Ltd v Sykes (VO). The primary geographical test asks whether the putative hereditament forms a single unit on a plan and has visual or cartographic unity. Direct internal communication may indicate a single hereditament, whereas access through common parts or public areas may indicate separate hereditaments.

4. A functional test may unite geographically distinct spaces where the use of one is necessary to the effectual enjoyment of the other. Whether spaces could reasonably be let separately may assist, but a hereditament need not contain every feature of a self-contained unit. The way premises are occupied may be relevant, and exclusive possession is not determinative.

5. The question cannot be resolved mechanically. It requires factual judgment and professional common sense. The VTE had not applied that test, so the High Court did not remake the decision. The specialist tribunal was better placed to determine the factual and valuation issues, including the significance of communal facilities.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal allowed and remitted to a differently constituted Valuation Tribunal for England for redetermination.
• Valuation Tribunal for England: decision dated 14 April 2023; appeal dismissed and six rooms treated as separate dwellings.