Doreen Clark v Dawn Bunyan (Listing Officer)

An appeal from the Valuation Tribunal for England lies to the High Court only on a question of law. It is not a rehearing on valuation merits or factual comparability. A Listing Officer may prospectively correct a Council Tax band where satisfied that a different band should previously have been determined, including where the original band resulted from an inaccurate measurement. The statutory valuation assumptions must still be applied to the property as it existed on the relevant date. No particular valuation methodology is prescribed. A specialist tribunal may select appropriate evidence, including comparable properties and the tone of the list. Its evaluative conclusions attract substantial appellate restraint.

The Appellant appealed against the Valuation Tribunal for England’s dismissal of her challenge to the Listing Officer’s decision to increase the Council Tax band of her property from Band E to Band F with effect from 28 July 2021.

The property had entered the valuation list in 2006. The Listing Officer later concluded that its size had been incorrectly recorded and that, applying the statutory valuation scheme, it should have been placed in Band F. The Appellant challenged the measurement method, the Listing Officer’s power to correct the list, the treatment of locality factors and the VTE’s assessment of comparable properties. The central issues were whether the VTE had erred in law and whether the Listing Officer could correct an earlier mis-banding without a new transaction.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appeal was confined by regulation 43(1) of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009 to questions of law. Challenges to factual findings, comparable properties and expert valuation judgment were outside the Court’s appellate jurisdiction unless the decision was irrational, proceeded on a wrong legal principle or took account of irrelevant matters.
2. The VTE was entitled to accept the reduced covered area method. No legally prescribed measuring methodology existed. The choice of method was an expert evaluative judgment, and using the same method for comparison with other properties was rational: [57]-[61].
3. Regulation 3(1)(b)(i) of the Council Tax (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009 permitted, and required, correction of an earlier inaccurate banding. That power included correcting a band based on an incorrect measurement. It was not limited to cases involving a later increase in value or a relevant transaction: [68]-[84].
4. When correcting a mis-banding, the Listing Officer must determine the property’s regulation 6(1) value under the Council Tax (Situation and Valuation of Dwellings) Regulations 1992, applying the statutory assumptions and the property’s size, layout, character and physical locality at the relevant date. Comparable sales and the tone of the list may be used as evidence: [42]-[46], [77]-[80].
5. The VTE was entitled to adopt its earlier conclusions on school expansion, traffic, planning restrictions and covenants. The Appellant had not objected when submissions on those issues were not required, and the issues remained matters of valuation judgment rather than questions of law: [85]-[94].

High Court (Administrative Court): dismissed the appeal from the decision of the Valuation Tribunal for England dated 4 October 2022.