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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> North British Trust Hotels Ltd & Ors v Assessor for the Highland and Western Isles Area [2004] ScotCS 222 (30 June 2004)
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Cite as: [2004] ScotCS 222
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North British Trust Hotels Ltd & Ors v Assessor for the Highland and Western Isles Area [2004] ScotCS 222 (30 June 2004)
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LANDS VALUATION APPEAL COURT, COURT OF SESSION |
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Lord Justice Clerk Lord Nimmo Smith Lord Clarke |
XA78/04 OPINION OF THE LORD JUSTICE CLERK in STATED CASES in APPEALS by NORTH BRITISH TRUST HOTELS LIMITED and OTHERS Appellants; against ASSESSOR FOR THE HIGHLAND AND WESTERN ISLES AREA Respondent: (Subjects: 12 Hotels in the Highlands and Western Isles Valuation Area) _______ |
Act: Davidson QC; Anderson Strathern
Alt: Haddow QC; Drummond Miller
30 June 2004
[1] On 3 December 2003 the Highlands and Western Isles Valuation Appeal Committee refused 12 appeals from the 2000 Revaluation relating to hotels. Mr Peter Henry, FRICS conducted the appeals before the Committee. He then lodged appeals to this court in all 12 cases. [2] At the outset of the hearing of these appeals, counsel for the appellants moved for leave to abandon them. Counsel for the assessor did not oppose the motion but moved for expenses. Counsel for the appellants, without expressly conceding the expenses, did not advance any ground of opposition to that motion. In the course of the discussion we learned that Mr Henry pursued these appeals without having taken counsel's advice. When counsel was consulted, he advised that the appeals should be abandoned. Notice of the intended abandonment was given to the solicitors for the assessor only two days before the hearing. [3] These appeals should not have been taken in the first place; and they would not have been if Mr Henry had consulted counsel. Once again Mr Henry has wasted the time of this court (cf Noble v Ass for Grampian Valuation Joint Board, 2004 SC 383). In my opinion, the assessor is entitled to expenses. [4] This case is an example of the problems that can arise when valuation appeals are pursued on legal questions by persons who are not legally qualified. The history of these appeals, before the Committee as well as before this court, raises questions of professional competence and responsibility that cause me concern. [5] These were the last remaining hotel appeals in this valuation area arising from the 2000 Revaluation. The other 192 hotel appeals were settled on the basis of the valuation scheme for hotels drawn up by the Scottish Assessors' Association (SAA) for that Revaluation (the 2000 Scheme). In most of those cases, the appellants were represented by professional valuers. [6] In these cases the assessor lodged with the Committee all available rental evidence for hotels in his area. The assistant assessor gave evidence. He explained the basis of the assessor's valuation in each case by reference to the 2000 Scheme and he explained the treatment of any special valuation features of the individual appeal subjects. [7] Mr Henry made four main submissions to the Committee, namely (1) that these were "test cases" for the 2000 Revaluation of hotels; (2) that the subjects should be valued so as to achieve "harmonisation" of hotel valuations in Scotland with those in England and Wales, of which he gave examples in Eastbourne, Retford, Harrogate and Scarborough; (3) that the subjects should be valued by the application to the turnover streams of the percentages used in the SAA Scheme for the 1995 Revaluation (the 1995 Scheme), but "aligned to" the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Matrix, which adopted a single percentage; and (4) that to place the onus on the assessor to explain his valuation in a revaluation appeal, all that the appellant had to do was "to put forward a credible valuation approach to the Committee." [8] The Committee rightly rejected all of these submissions. It found that the 2000 Scheme was an appropriate basis for the valuations and upheld the assessor's revised valuations. [9] I cannot see how these appeals could be described as test cases, except perhaps in the sense that they were another of Mr Henry's single-handed challenges to a revaluation scheme in the face of widespread acceptance of it by other professionals (eg Noble v Ass for Grampian Valuation Joint Board, supra). Mr Henry's case on harmonisation was hopeless. As counsel for the appellants accepted, the alleged obligation of the assessor to harmonise valuations has no basis in law. The use of the percentages from a previous scheme in the application of a 2000 Revaluation Scheme was expressly disapproved by this court in one of Mr Henry's own cases (Belhaven Brewery Group plc v Glasgow City Ass, 2003 SC 395, at para [16]). He either failed to understand that decision or was not prepared to accept it. I need not discuss Mr Henry's submission on the question of onus in revaluation appeals. It is based on a misunderstanding of Drybrough v Ass for Strathclyde (1982 SLT 426). [10] I have further concerns in relation to events after the Committee gave its decision. I regret to say that Mr Henry yet again burdened the secretary of a local committee with meaningless and irrelevant grounds of appeal (cf Belhaven Brewery Group plc v Glasgow City Ass, supra; Sinclair v Lothian Regional Ass, [2003] RA 202). Despite our comments on the point in earlier cases, he again based an appeal on allegations that, in making findings in fact with which he disagreed, the committee erred in law. In pursuing these hopeless appeals, Mr Henry wasted the time of the assessor, the Committee and the secretary and, I expect, sorely tried their patience. [11] In this highly technical area of the law, it is important that the conduct of appeals before local committees should be in competent hands, particularly in view of the considerable public costs that local hearings involve. North British Trust Hotels Ltd & Ors v Assessor for the Highland and Western Isles Area [2004] ScotCS 222 (30 June 2004)|
LANDS VALUATION APPEAL COURT, COURT OF SESSION |
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Lord Justice Clerk Lord Nimmo Smith Lord Clarke
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XA78/04 OPINION OF LORD NIMMO SMITH in STATED CASES in APPEALS by NORTH BRITISH TRUST HOTELS LIMITED and OTHERS Appellants; against ASSESSOR FOR THE HIGHLAND AND WESTERN ISLES AREA Respondent: (Subjects: 12 Hotels in the Highlands and Western Isles Valuation Area) _______ |
Act: Davidson QC; Anderson Strathern
Alt: Haddow QC; Drummond Miller
30 June 2004
[12] I agree with your Lordship in the chair that the assessor is entitled to an award of expenses following the abandonment of appeals which have been unarguable from the outset. I also agree with your Lordship's further remarks. I wish to add only a few words of my own. [13] It is an abuse of the process of this court, and contrary to the public interest in the efficient administration of justice, that unarguable appeals should be brought, as they have been here, only to be abandoned at such a late stage that judicial time, which could have been used for other business, is bound to be wasted. Consideration may have to be given to the introduction of procedures designed to ensure, at an early stage, that only arguable appeals are allowed to proceed further. Part of the problem here has been that the appeals have been brought, with no apparent justification, by a representative who has no right of audience before this court, and who has not (for whatever reason) obtained the opinion of counsel at the earliest possible opportunity after the Committee had given its decision. At the very least, in these circumstances, the appellants (who may not have been aware that they were exposed to this risk) should be found liable in expenses; and this was the motion of counsel for the assessor. But I by no means exclude the possibility, in a similar situation, of finding the representative personally liable in expenses, as a means of bringing home to him the serious view which we are obliged to take of such irresponsible conduct.North British Trust Hotels Ltd & Ors v Assessor for the Highland and Western Isles Area [2004] ScotCS 222 (30 June 2004)
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LANDS VALUATION APPEAL COURT, COURT OF SESSION |
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|
Lord Justice Clerk Lord Nimmo Smith Lord Clarke
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XA78/04 OPINION OF LORD CLARKE in STATED CASES in APPEALS by NORTH BRITISH TRUST HOTELS LIMITED and OTHERS Appellants; against ASSESSOR FOR THE HIGHLAND AND WESTERN ISLES AREA Respondent: (Subjects: 12 Hotels in the Highlands and Western Isles Valuation Area) _______ |
Act: Davidson QC; Anderson Strathern
Alt: Haddow QC; Drummond Miller
30 June 2004
[14] For the reasons given by your Lordship these appeals were clearly without merit. They should not have been taken. They certainly should not have been persisted in until the morning of the hearing before this court, with the consequent waste of court time and expense. [15] When, as was the position in the present case, appellants choose to be represented by a non-legally qualified person before Valuation Appeal Committees, then, if they are minded to appeal a decision of any such Committee, they should obtain the advice of a person with rights of audience before this court as to the appropriateness or not of taking such an appeal, well before the appeal hearing. Failure to do so is, in my judgment, irresponsible and will justify an award of expenses against the appellant in the event of the appeal being abandoned, as being unarguable, at the very last moment, as has happened in these cases. [16] I agree, for these reasons, with your Lordship in the chair, that expenses should be awarded in these appeals against the appellants and in favour of the respondent.