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Michael Stanuszek v Dawn Bunyan (Listing Officer)

20 December 2023
[2023] EWHC 3275 (Admin)
High Court
The landlord rented out each room in his house separately. The government said each room was a separate house for tax purposes. The landlord disagreed. The court agreed with the landlord and sent the case back to be decided correctly, explaining that whether each room is a separate 'house' needs to be decided based on established legal principles, focusing on whether the rooms are separate units geographically and functionally, rather than just who lives where.

Key Facts

  • The Appellant owns a property containing six rooms, each with a bathroom, let separately under assured shorthold tenancies.
  • Each tenant has exclusive possession of their room and shared use of communal areas (kitchen, etc.).
  • The Listing Officer assessed each room as a separate dwelling for council tax purposes.
  • The Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE) upheld the Listing Officer's decision.
  • The Appellant appeals, arguing the entire property should be a single dwelling.

Legal Principles

Definition of a 'dwelling' for council tax purposes: a hereditament (as defined in rating law) wholly used for living accommodation.

Local Government Finance Act 1992, section 3

Definition of 'hereditament': property liable to a rate, shown as a separate item in the valuation list.

General Rate Act 1967, section 115; Mazars

Four ingredients of rateable occupation: actual occupation, exclusive possession, value or benefit to possessor, and occupation not too transient.

John Laing & Son Limited

Primary test for identifying hereditaments is geographical (visual or cartographic unity), with functional test relevant in certain cases (whether separate letting is reasonable).

Mazars

Occupation of premises can be relevant in determining the number of hereditaments, but exclusive possession is not determinative.

Mazars, Cardtronics

A hereditament must be in single rateable occupation; a building with parts in separate occupation requires amendment to the valuation list to show separate hereditaments.

Re Briant Colour Printing Co. Ltd, Curzon Berkeley Ltd v Bliss

Council Tax (Chargeable Dwellings) Order 1992 (CDO) allows for disaggregation (Article 3) and aggregation (Article 4) of dwellings.

Council Tax (Chargeable Dwellings) Order 1992

Outcomes

Appeal allowed.

The VTE conflated the test for rateable occupation with the test for identifying a hereditament; it failed to apply the correct test from Mazars.

Case remitted to a differently constituted VTE for redetermination.

The VTE did not apply the correct test for identifying hereditaments. Remission allows the VTE to apply the correct principles.

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