Kevin Prosser KC v Andrew Ricketts

For rating purposes, barristers’ chambers may constitute a single hereditament even though individual members occupy separate rooms for their own practices. Joint legal or equitable rights over the premises support joint occupation. The allocation of rooms for privacy and efficient professional use does not, without more, convert that joint occupation into separate rateable occupations.

The court must consider the wider purpose and organisation of the occupation, including collective rights, shared services, expense-sharing and retained powers to regulate or alter room arrangements. Unexercised powers may be relevant. If separate occupations are found, the person retaining paramount control over the premises may remain the rateable occupier.

The appellant, the head of a set of barristers’ chambers, challenged the Valuation Tribunal for England’s decision of 26 April 2023. The tribunal had upheld the Valuation Officer’s entry of chambers’ annex at Jockey’s Fields as one hereditament.

The premises contained seven rooms occupied by individual barristers, together with reception, seminar, administrative and pupils’ accommodation. The leases were held by four members on trust for all members. The parties agreed that the individual rooms were capable of being separate hereditaments if separately occupied.

The central issue was whether the premises were jointly occupied by all members, or whether individual barristers were in sole or paramount occupation of their own rooms.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Jockey’s Fields premises were properly entered as a single hereditament.
2. For rating purposes, members held equal and joint beneficial interests in every part of the premises under the trust created by the Constitution and reflected in the leases. Occupation under joint legal or equitable rights is treated as joint occupation of one hereditament, unless the parties have made a different arrangement giving each exclusive occupation of part.
3. The allocation of individual rooms did not create separate rateable occupations. The shared purpose was to enable members to conduct their separate practices from common premises, under a collective identity, with shared support, administration and expenses. Privacy and individual use were the appropriate mode of occupation for that purpose, not evidence that joint occupation had ended.
4. The Constitution and the adopted parental-leave and part-time-working policy showed that chambers retained collective control over accommodation. Its powers included requiring or permitting room-sharing, moving members or ultimately requiring rooms to be vacated. The fact that those powers had not been exercised did not make them irrelevant.
5. The court therefore found that all members jointly occupied the whole premises. Alternatively, if individual members were treated as occupying their own rooms while chambers occupied the whole, chambers remained in paramount occupation because it controlled the building, allocated and serviced rooms, retained regulatory powers, and the individual occupations advanced chambers’ common purpose.
6. The rating list was to continue to show the premises as a single hereditament.

• Valuation Tribunal for England: On 26 April 2023, upheld the Valuation Officer’s treatment of the Jockey’s Fields premises as one hereditament.
• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): Dismissed the appeal and upheld the single-hereditament entry.