The Church of Scientology Religious Education College Inc v Andrew Ricketts (Valuation Officer)

A certified place of religious worship is a place of public religious worship where all properly disposed persons may attend and the organisation objectively makes its worship public by an effective invitation. Public worship does not depend on the number of non-members who accept that invitation.

Under paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, exemption is available only to the extent of the qualifying use. The office exemption in paragraph 11(2)(b) requires office use by an organisation responsible for public worship in a certified place; it imposes no additional connection between that office use and the worship. A church hall or similar building is assessed functionally, but must have a real, subsidiary or ancillary connection with the public place of worship.

The Church occupied a former office building at 146 Queen Victoria Street, containing a Scientology chapel and a range of teaching, auditing, information, administrative and training spaces, and an information centre at 68 Tottenham Court Road.

It appealed from the decision of the President of the Valuation Tribunal for England, dated 10 June 2021, which had rejected its proposals to remove the assessments from the 2010 rating list. The Tribunal had found that neither hereditament contained a place of public religious worship and had adopted a restrictive interpretation of the office exemption.

The Upper Tribunal considered whether the chapel was publicly open for worship and the extent to which the remaining spaces qualified as church halls or similar buildings, or as offices, under paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

1. Appeal allowed in part. The chapel at the London Church was certified as a place of religious worship. Its weekly Sunday service was public worship. The Church’s permanent identification of the building as a church, its signage, access for visitors, advertising, online invitations and practice of admitting newcomers objectively manifested an invitation to all properly disposed persons. Modest public attendance did not alter that conclusion.

2. Paragraph 11(2)(b) of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 contains no implied requirement that office work be ancillary to, or connected with, the conduct of worship. It is enough that the space is used as an office or for office purposes by an organisation responsible for public worship in a certified place. The Tribunal therefore rejected the Valuation Tribunal’s restrictive construction. Individual and group auditing rooms were not offices: clerical recording within a religious exercise did not convert rooms used exclusively for that practice into office space.

3. For paragraph 11(1)(b), a church hall or similar building is identified by its primary function, assessed objectively and broadly across denominations. Private study, instruction, information displays, films, introductory activities, social facilities, group auditing and the Purification Area could be hall-like uses. They were sufficiently connected with the chapel at the London Church by proximity, participation and function. The Academy, devoted to training new auditors, and the preserved office of L. Ron Hubbard, were not comparable to a church hall. Nor were the individual auditing suites.

4. The Information Centre’s offices and associated storage in the basement were exempt under paragraph 11(2)(b). Its remaining spaces were not exempt under paragraph 11(1)(b), because the Centre did not provide a facility for the congregations at the London Church or Saint Hill and had no real connection with either public place of worship.

5. The rateable values were to be reduced to reflect the exempt areas. If the parties could not agree the revised values, they could seek further directions.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): allowed the appeal in part in [2023] UKUT 1 (LC), holding that specified parts of both hereditaments were exempt under paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

• Valuation Tribunal for England: the President dismissed the Church’s appeals against the rejection of its proposals on 10 June 2021.