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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Nawaz v Slough Borough Council [2002] EWCA Civ 984 (13 June 2002) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2002/984.html Cite as: [2002] EWCA Civ 984

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE LANDS TRIBUNAL

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Thursday, 13th June 2002

Thursday, 13th June 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN: Before me is an application for permission to appeal from a judgment of the Lands Tribunal in a compulsory purchase case. The Tribunal awarded £7,000 in respect of a house which had been let in multiple occupation. I have been addressed by Mr Rajendra, who is a chartered management accountant. At the request of Mr Nawaz Mr Rajendra did the case in front of the Lands Tribunal and in the exercise of my discretion I have very unusually permitted him to address me which he has done perfectly lucidly.
2. The case has an unfortunate background so far as the valuation evidence is concerned, because, as is explained in the Tribunal's decision at paragraph 4, the applicant failed to file his expert evidence witness statements in time. An order was made for the reference to be stayed for a month for the purpose of enabling both parties' experts to provide revised reports. That was granted. The hearing was relisted for 8th February on conditions that expert reports be exchanged by Friday, 1st February; if the claimant failed to serve his expert witness reports by time and dates stated he would thereafter and without further notice be debarred from calling expert witness. The end result of that was that the applicant did nothing to get his evidence there on time, evidently, and so the Tribunal did not have the benefit of it.
3. Mr Rajendra makes four points in relation to the valuation exercise done by the Lands Tribunal, submitting that these either singly or in combination constitute an error of law.
4. The Lands Tribunal arrived at its decision by accepting evidence that the subject house in good condition would be worth £85,000 at the valuation date, that is was not in good condition, that various works had been needed to be done in order to bring it up to good condition and in the light of those factors the Lands Tribunal came to the conclusion that a round sum of £70,000 would be an appropriate amount to award.
5. The first two points taken by Mr Rajendra relates to the starting figure of £85,000. The first says that Mr Nawaz produced a comparable house, namely No.19 Lake Avenue, in relation to which the Tribunal merely said this:

"Mr Nawaz said that he was aware of the sale of 19 Lake Avenue, a very similar property, in 1999 at £97,000 but could produce no verification."

6. Whether that was Mr Nawaz saying he could not produce any verification or whether it was the Tribunal saying there was no verification is not entirely clear, though I take it as the former, but undoubtedly so far as the latter is concerned the member indicated elsewhere in the decision at paragraph 22:

"No evidence was adduced to back up the oral statement that 19 Lake Avenue had sold and neither was the representative of B Simmons & Co the agents who were purported not only to be offering the subject property for sale at the valuation date but who had supposedly received an offer of £96,000."

7. My attention was drawn to a document headed "Memorandum of Sale Subject to Contract", which says "Price Agreed", but contains no signature, in any event on the copy that I have, and significantly is marked "Subject to Contract". So far as I could see the member was absolutely right in saying there was no written evidence that a sale had taken place in practice, and so I do not regard him as having made an error of law at this stage.
8. The second point that is taken concerns an offer which had been made allegedly in relation to the subject property. We see on page 43 details of the property on sale for £99,500, and at page 44 what purports to be a letter from a Mr O'Donovan on behalf of B Simmons & Son to say that they had received an offer on the property and "this letter is confirmation of that fact as required by the Estate Agents Act 1979." There is, however, no evidence as to the terms of the offer. What the member said in relation to that I have already read. But paragraph 22 of the decision contains this part at the beginning of the paragraph:

"The only expert evidence I had before me was that provided by the acquiring authority. Despite the fact that a further period had been granted to the claimant, at his request, to enable him to obtain his expert evidence, such evidence was not forthcoming. If Mr Nawaz had been so confident that the acquiring authority's valuer had underestimated the value of the subject property I have to question why he did not arrange for his expert to provide a report in the required timescale and for him to appear on his behalf."

9. As it seems to me no error of law is disclosed here in this part of the decision.
10. The third criticism which is advanced relates to the local authority's expert evidence. That was given by Mr Nigel Conie a chartered surveyor with considerable experience at that stage. The decision letter says that he at first inspected the subject property in 1999 both internally and externally and subsequently made external inspections at September 2000 and January 2002. He said that when he first saw it the condition of the property was extremely poor, and whilst he did not undertake a structural survey he thought the extent of repairs that were listed in the schedule that had been prepared by the Council was broadly in line with what he considered needed doing at the time. The way the local authority evidence was structured was starting with the figure of £85,000 the expert evidence took something off for repairs, arriving at a figure of £69,000. What he did is set out in paragraph 17 of the decision letter. The amount taken off for repairs shown on the schedule to which the expert referred was £24,300, but Mr Coley made deductions from that so that items which he did not think would be considered essential by a purchaser should not figure. It was a rough and ready exercise. He struck some out completely and, as to others, he listed them and said:

"Three-quarters of these would not be taken by a purchaser."

11. So that list which had been priced at present day cost was cut down in the way I described and then discounted so as to allow for inflation since the valuation date. Mr Rajendra makes the point that some of the items which were left on that schedule involves structural matters and the valuer openly admitted that he had not undertaken a structural survey. He further says that at the hearing it was accepted that the Council had done works in 1998 to the tune of £20,000. So that is a third criticism.
12. As it seems to me the valuation principles applied by the expert, Mr Conie, were perfectly sensible valuation principles. Whether or no in the light of the fact that he had not undertaken a structural survey the member should pay regard to it was a matter principally for the member. It is undoubtedly possible for the member of the Lands Tribunal in respect of a relatively small property to say: "I accept in the absence of any contrary expert evidence the very rough-and-ready approach has to be admitted of Mr Conie, but who was an expert man, looking at a property of a type of which he was no doubt extremely familiar."
13. The problem that the Lands Tribunal has in these cases is do they insist an valuations on each side which can be very expensive exercises to undertake, or can they be satisfied with a rough-and-ready exercise. That is a matter essentially for their decision initially and I see nothing legally wrong with what happened in the present case.
14. The fourth point pay made by Mr Rajendra is of a different kind altogether. He says that the member in his decision letter clearly made no allowance for the claim for disturbance. That is right so far as it goes. The member say this in paragraph 8:

"The only issue for determination is the open market value of the freehold interest in the subject property."

15. That is the exercise the member did.
16. Mr Rajendra handed in to me a page which he claimed he had handed in to the Tribunal which included a claim for loss of rent. It is unclear in respect of what period or how this was transmogrified into a claim for disturbance. It may be that these problems arose from the absence of an expert witness or it may be due to the fact that the house was subject to a control order and the local authority had evidently spent some money on it and these are added complicated factors which would go potentially into any valuation.
17. Judging by the total failure of the member to deal with the point I could only conclude that it was not pursued at the Tribunal. I am not persuaded that the Lands Tribunal made an error of law in not permitting this claim to go ahead, if indeed permission was sought for it to be done. The member sets out his position in paragraphs 23 and 24, where he says:

"I am satisfied, from the evidence that was before me that the true value of 49 Lake Avenue, Slough was much nearer Mr Conie's figure - that being supported by good comparable evidence of actual sales undertaken by his own office. Allowing the claimant the benefit of the doubt in relation to one matter and bearing in mind the difficulties in being precise to the nearest thousand, I prefer Mr Conie's original figure which was a round sum and I determine that the acquiring authority shall pay to the claimant the sum of £70,000."

18. In my judgment this is not a decision an appeal against which has a real prospect of success. The applicant was placed in a difficult situation, perhaps because he did not have his valuation or factual evidence in good shape, despite adjournments, but I must refuse permission to appeal.
(Application refused no; order for costs).