Cases - Alexander Wood & Son v Aberdeenshire Assessor

Record details

Name

Alexander Wood & Son v Aberdeenshire Assessor

Date

[1963]

Citation

RA 101, Lands Valuation Appeal Court

Keywords

Rating valuation - purpose of user - category of user - subdivision of categories

Summary

A herring curing yard was valued by the assessor by analysing the rents of all commercial buildings in the relevant area and obtaining basic rates per square foot for buildings and per square yard for land. These rates were applied to the herring curing yard, diminished where necessary for age or poor condition, along with other fish curing yards. A special deduction was made to allow for the declining demand for fish curing yards, which had resulted in uses at the lowest rates. The ratepayers contended (among other things) that the yard should be valued as a herring curing yard and not as a fish curing yard, and gave evidence that as a herring curing yard it would only let at a lower rate.

The assessor's valuation was upheld. The requirement to value premises in the proper category did not necessitate minutely subdividing general categories. The evidence did not support any such subdivision of herring curing yards from other fish curing yards.

Lord Patrick’s judgement included a useful statement of principle (and examples) on the application of categories in rating valuations.

'The ratepayers' main complaint is that an error in principle has been committed in the valuation of their yard. They say their yard should not have been valued as a fish curing yard, but as a herring curing yard ... Now it is perfectly true that heritage must be valued in its proper category, but valuation law and practice do not require that general categories of heritage should be minutely sub-divided. Shops are valued as shops, not as grocers' shops or as butchers' shops. Factories are valued as factories, not as factories for producing tweed or as factories for producing wireless components.'