Bruntwood Aviva Limited v Lucy Formela-Osborne (Valuation Officer)

Under regulation 14(1B) of the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009, an alteration correcting an inaccuracy in a rating list generally takes effect from the day on which the circumstances giving rise to the alteration first occurred. Those circumstances may include the existence of a hereditament which should have appeared in the list, even where the Valuation Officer previously entered the property incorrectly. The effective date is not confined to the date of the later corrective alteration. Regulation 14(7) creates a specific limitation where an increased assessment corrects an inaccuracy arising during an earlier alteration; that limitation does not generally apply when one incorrect entry is deleted and replaced by several hereditaments. Appeal dismissed.

The appellant occupied twenty unlet car-parking hereditaments in Birmingham. They were originally entered in the 2017 rating list as a single hereditament with effect from 1 April 2017. The Valuation Officer later deleted that entry and created forty-five new hereditaments, including the twenty parking hereditaments, again with effect from 1 April 2017.

The Valuation Tribunal for England confirmed that effective date in its decision of 4 December 2024. The appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal, contending that the new entries should instead take effect from 24 January 2022 or 31 October 2022. The central issue was the meaning of the circumstances giving rise to the alteration in regulation 14(1B) of the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009.

1. Appeal dismissed. The twenty parking hereditaments were correctly entered with effect from 1 April 2017.
2. The purpose of the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009 is to facilitate the maintenance of an accurate rating list. Regulation 14(1B) permits retrospective correction of inaccuracies which have arisen since the list was compiled.
3. The phrase circumstances giving rise to the alteration refers to the circumstances relating to the first alteration. In this case, those circumstances were the existence of the parking spaces by 1 April 2017 and their omission from the rating list. The fact that the Valuation Officer had first entered them incorrectly as a single hereditament did not postpone the effective date of the replacement entries.
4. The grounds in regulation 4(1) and the effective-date provisions in regulation 14 are not cross-referenced in a way which requires the circumstances to be defined by a particular paragraph of regulation 4(1). The appellant’s reliance on regulation 4(1)(d), concerning an inaccurate alteration made by a Valuation Officer, was therefore misconceived.
5. BMC Properties and Management Ltd v Jackson (Valuation Officer) [2015] EWCA Civ 1306 supports the conclusion that circumstances may include both an underlying change and a subsisting inaccuracy in the list. Its facts did not create a binding principle determining this case, but the reasoning was consistent with the Tribunal’s interpretation.
6. Regulation 14(7) applies a specific backdating limitation where an alteration corrects an inaccuracy arising during a previous alteration and increases the rateable value. The Regulations do not extend that limitation to the insertion of several replacement hereditaments where only one incorrect entry previously existed.
7. Where the original assessment is deleted, it ceases to exist and the Valuation Officer must assess the replacement hereditaments by reference to the actual circumstances at the date from which the new assessments are to take effect.

• Valuation Tribunal for England: By decision dated 4 December 2024, confirmed 1 April 2017 as the effective date.
• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): Appeal dismissed. The Tribunal upheld the effective date determined by the VTE.