The ratepayer
Pump Court Tax Chambers is a set of barristers’ chambers whose barristers (the members of chambers) specialise in tax. Mr Prosser K.C. is the head of chambers.
All the barristers in chambers had subscribed to the chambers constitution which stipulate that property held by the chambers was held on trust for each of the members of chambers.
The appeal premises
The premises used by the chambers included two floors of an office building known as 15-17 Jockey’s Fields in central London.
Those floors were let to four members of the chambers as trustees for the chambers.
Those two floors comprised seven rooms used by members; a reception, rooms for seminars and for the pupil barristers and common parts.
The assessments
The Valuation Officer (the VO) had assessed the two floors in a single assessment with a rateable value of £152,000 with effect from 1 April 2017. On behalf of Mr Prosser, a proposal was made to delete that assessment to enable separate assessments of each of the seven barristers’ rooms, the reception and the seminar and pupils’ rooms.
Some of the barristers’ rooms were valued in this proposal at £12,000 or less. If the proposal succeeded, those lower value rooms would be exempt from paying rates, leaving only £99,000 of rateable value still billable. The VO did not agree and stood by the existing assessment.
The appeal
The Upper Tribunal Lands Chamber heard the ensuing appeal.
The issue was whether the members of chambers who were allocated the seven rooms were in sole or paramount application of each of those rooms, with chambers being in rateable occupation of the shared facilities (as Mr Prosser contended). Alternatively, were chambers in the sole or paramount occupation of all of the two floors (as the VO contended)? It was agreed that both the individual rooms and the two floors together were capable of being rateable units of property, if the facts supported that finding.
Chambers referred to the facts on the ground. Members allocated a room spent substantial amounts on decoration and furnishing their rooms and were never relocated. Members required privacy for their conversations and meetings with clients and so were given control of their rooms.
The VO pointed to the wider context and the way in which chambers operated.
The decision
The UTLC held that the constitution, and the leases, established that the space was held by chambers on trust for each of the members. Each member had an equal, beneficial interest in that space.
In coming to this conclusion, the UTLC relied upon a 1969 case in which the House of Lords ruled that joint occupation by more than one person could be exclusive occupation, if the occupiers all shared the same legal rights to occupy.
The UTLC held that, as the members of chambers each had equal rights under the constitution and leases, they were each in joint but exclusive occupation of both floors. Accordingly, the single assessment of all the space was correct.
Paramountcy
The UTLC further held that if it had decided that chambers as a whole was not in sole occupation of the whole, it would have held that chambers’ occupation was paramount to that of the individual barristers. The arrangements in chambers were designed to support all the barristers with the facilities they needed to generate income and enhance their reputations. Again, the VO’s assessment was correct.
Conclusion
The decision in Prosser v Ricketts matters because it:
- is an example of the UTLC relying on the documents whilst not being insensitive to the facts;
- brings into the mainstream the analysis of joint occupation as expressed by the House of Lords over 60 years ago;
- demonstrates the UTLC’s current thinking on paramountcy;
- is a useful, modern example of the UTLC at work (albeit that, though a specialist tribunal, it can be and is sometimes reversed on appeal)
See Prosser v Ricketts (VO) [2024] 4 WLR 95, [2024] UKUT 264 (LC)
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