Valuation for rating - Retail warehouses at out-of-town retail park - Common car park separately assessed - Whether double assessment - Rateable occupation - Stand alone retail warehouse with own car park - Car park element in assessment
Springkerse Retail Park is a commercial development two miles from the town centre of Stirling. It was opened in 1995 and contains a terrace of thirteen retail warehouses which are served by a customer car park with 900 spaces. The assessor had made entries in the valuation roll in respect of the warehouses at net annual values agreed by the several agents acting for the ratepayers. The assessor had also entered the common car park in the roll at net annual value of £81,000 with the landlord shown as owner and occupier.
The primary contention of the appellant ratepayers is that the entry in respect of the car park should be deleted from the roll because its value is included in the collective assessments of the warehouses and valuing it separately results in double assessment. Alternatively, if double assessment were established but the car park was not to be deleted from the roll in that it was in separate rateable occupation, it should be entered at nil value.
The case also involved a running roll appeal in respect of a retail warehouse with its own car park, located on a stand alone site close to the retail park. The ratepayer contended that, in the event that the appeals in respect of the units in the retail park are successful, the element of their net annual value attributable to car parking should be deducted.
The questions to be answered are firstly whether the whole value of the common car park was included in the rents and the net annual values of the units in the retail park thus resulting in double assessment. Secondly whether the common car park was not in the separate rateable occupation of the landlord but was truly a pertinent of the leases of retail units.
Held that:
Assessor for Renfrewshire v Old Consort Co Ltd 1960 SC 226
Assessor for Dunbartonshire v W Baird & Co 1926 SC 479
East Kilbride Development Corporation v Assessor for Strathclyde Region 1995 SLT (Lands Tr) 27
Ravenseft Properties Limited v Assessor for Strathclyde Region 1991 RA 576 and SC 266
Assessor for Lothian Region v Livingston Development Corporation 1984 SLT 42
See full decision: LTS/VA/1997/2 - 13 and 1998/28