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United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions >> Greig v. University of Edinburgh. [1868] UKHL 620_1 (8 June 1868) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1868/05SLR0620_1.html Cite as: [1868] UKHL 620_1, 5 ScotLR 620_1 |
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Page: 620↓
Subject_Poor-Rates — University — Assessment — Crown — Annual Value — Beneficial Occupation.
The University of Edinburgh held liable in poor-rates.
Subject_Per Lord Chancellor.
The general principle is, that, the Crown not being named in the assessing Statutes, and not being bound by Statute when not expressly named, any property which is in the occupation of the Crown, or of persons using it exclusively in and for the service of the Crown, is not rateable to the relief of the poor.
The University buildings have an “annual value.”
The University of Edinburgh brought an action in the Court of Session against the appellant, George Greig, inspector of poor of the City parish of Edinburgh, for declarator that they were not liable, either as owners or as occupants, to be assessed for poor-rates for the city parish of Edinburgh, in respect of the University buildings. The ground upon which the University claimed exemption was, that the buildings of the University were national or public property, or property dedicated to national or public purposes, and from the occupation of which no revenue was derived.
The Lord Ordinary (
This appeal was then presented.
Sir Roundell Palmer, Q.C., J. T. Anderson, and Turner, for appellant.
Lord Advocate (Gordon) and Mellish Q.C., for respondents.
At advising—
Lord Chancellor—My lords, in this case an action of declarator was raised by the University of Edinburgh against the Parochial Board of the parish of Edinburgh, through their public officer, to have it declared that the University are not liable as owners or occupiers of the University buildings to any assessment for the poor-rate. The record was closed, but no proof was led; and, upon the averments on the record and consideration of the pleas in law, the Lord Ordinary assoilzied the defender from the conclusions of the summons. From that interlocutor a reclaiming note was presented to the Second Division of the Court of Session, to recall the interlocutor and declare in terms of the conclusions of the libel. The Court of Session pronounced an interlocutor to that effect, and from that decision of the Court of Session this appeal comes before your Lordships.
My Lords, two questions which are very different have been argued at your Lordships' bar. One of the arguments has been that the buildings of the University of Edinburgh were exempt from rate-ability on the score of what I may term Crown privilege,—irrespectively of any question as to value. The second ground of argument was, that they were exempt—or rather that they ought not to be rated — on the score of being of no annual value. I think your Lordships will be of opinion that these two questions must be kept distinct. If the argument of the respondents prevails on either of these grounds
Page: 621↓
Now, as to the first of these questions, namely, the claim for exemption on the score of Crown privilege, the manner in which the case is put by the pleas in law for the respondents is this. They say that the buildings of the University being national or public property, or property dedicated to national or public purposes, are not subject to assessment. The Court of Session has gone somewhat further than the plea in law, for I observe that the Lord Justice-Clerk in his opinion on the subject states that the University of Edinburgh is, in its corporate capacity, a servant of the Crown, owning and occupying the University buildings under the control and supervision of the Crown and government of the country for important national objects.
My Lords, the general principle which regulates the decision of questions of this kind has been well settled in your Lordships' House. I refer to the cases of the Mersey Docks and Adamson v. The Clyde Trustees, and the Commissioners of Leith Harbour. The general principle, as I understand it, approved by your Lordships in these cases is this, that the Crown not being named in the English or Scotch statutes on. the subject of assessment, and not being bound by statute when not expressly named, any property which is in the occupation of the Crown, or of persons using it exclusively in and for the service of the Crown, is not rateable to the relief of the poor.
My Lords, if that is the true principle, (and such it must now be taken to be), I think your Lordships will find that it is very easy of application to the present case. The University of Edinburgh is, no doubt, a great public and national institution; but the corporation of the University of Edinburgh is a corporation independent of the Crown, no doubt originally created by, but still independent of, the Crown. Its property is not Crown property, but it is properly vested in the Senatus Aeademicus for the University purposes. I agree with the statement of the Lord Ordinary, who said that the property could not be considered in any sense Crown property, nor would the assessment of the property directly or indirectly affect the Crown. With regard to the allegation in the pleas in law, that it is property dedicated to public purposes, that dedication, after the decisions of this House in the cases to which I have referred, must now be taken to be a wholly insufficient ground of exemption. Therefore, on the first argument of exemption on the score of Crown privilege, it appears to me that the buildings of the University of Edinburgh cannot be brought in any sense under that exemption.
Then, my Lords, on the second point, the question of value, the manner in which it has been put on behalf of the respondents at your Lordships' bar is this. It has been stated that the property is not capable of producing value. Now I must remind your Lordships, in the first place, that we are not here to decide on any question of quantum of value in respect of which the property should be assessed. That may be a matter of some difficulty which may have to be considered in detail hereafter. The question which your Lordships have now to deal with is, whether the argument now adduced, which was not much relied on in the Court below, that the premises are not capable of producing value, is an argument which ought to prevail.
My Lords, it might be sufficient to dispose of that argument to say that in a case where we find the University of Edinburgh actually in occupation and conducting all the great purposes for which they are incorporated, in and by means of these buildings, that alone is a beneficial occupation, which, subject to the question of what the quantum of benefit may be, is clearly an occupation rateable for the relief of the poor. And I might further point out to your Lordships that it appears clear, partly by the record and partly by admissions at your Lordships bar, that the University are in the habit of receiving matriculation fees from the students who attend these buildings, which fees would clearly not be paid unless there were buildings of which the students could have the benefit for the purpose of receiving instruction. Further than that, I might remind your Lordships that it appears on the record, and by those admissions, that the professors are allowed to receive fees from the students who attend their classes, and it is, of course, obvious that if the professors were not allowed to receive those fees, they would themselves have to be remunerated by higher salaries paid to them by the University. And, therefore, indirectly again, in that shape the University obtains the benefit of the fees which are paid to the professors; which fees, again, would not be paid by the students unless there were proper class-rooms in which the professors could deliver their instructions to the students. But I am bound to say that, even beyond that the Act of Parliament which deals with this question suggests (I will not say more, nor is it necessary that your Lordship should now say more) a test of value which, as it appears to me, might well be made applicable to cases of this kind, because the 8th and 9th of the Queen, chapter 83, after providing in the 34th section “that one-half of such assessment shall be imposed upon the owners and the other half upon the tenants or occupants of all lands and heritages within the parish,” the 37th section enacts, “that in estimating the annual value of lands and heritages, the same shall be taken to be the rent at which, one year with another, such lands and heritages might, in their actual state, be reasonably expected to let from year to year,” under certain deductions therein mentioned.
It was argued at the Bar that it must be taken that a tenant who became the lessee of these lands would not be able to use them otherwise than as the University could use them, that is to say, would not be able to put them to any other uses than the University would do. It may not be necessary to determine that question now, but it appears by no means clear that any such ingredient is to be taken into account when you are endeavouring to ascertain what a tenant would give for the premises in their present state. That point may better be determined when the question is specifically raised. But on the grounds I have mentioned I think your Lordships will be of opinion that there is in these premises clearly an annual value, and, if that be so, they are not exempt from rateability on the ground that they are like the case put in argument in one of the cases that came before your Lordships,—the case of a barren rock,—which is utterly without any value.
Speaking therefore, my Lords, with great respect for the decision of the Court of Session, I am bound to advise your Lordships, and I move your Lordships,
Page: 622↓
With regard to the question of there being no value, I think the receipt of the matriculation fees is quite sufficient; and the fact that the professors by occupying rooms belonging to the University, and under the control of the University, receive fees from the classes, is, I think, also conclusive. But I desire also to be understood as concurring with my noble and learned friend when I say that I very much doubt whether any of these matters are at all to be taken into consideration. When the Statute says that the value is to be calculated according to what a solvent tenant would pay for the property, making certain deductions which are specified, I cannot say that I am at all satisfied that it means that the tenant is only to occupy it for the same purposes for which it is occupied by the body that is proposed to be rated.
I have no hesitation therefore in concurring with my noble and learned friend in thinking that the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary was right, and that the interlocutors of the Second Division of the Court of Session must be reversed.
But it may be requisite to observe that, independently of exemption on the grounds of the property belonging to the government, there may be another ground of non-liability perfectly distinct, namely, where the property has no rateable value. Now, I do not mean by anything that I say on this occasion to prejudice at all the proper consideration of that question; for it may possibly be held that if property is occupied by persons for a purpose yielding no value at all, and they are absolutely prohibited from using it in any manner that would be productive of value, it may, I say, possibly be held that there is no rateable value in that property; and that, in that sense, therefore, it ought not to be assessed to the poor-rate. But the possession of property of no rateable value is wholly distinct from the possession of property in a character which entitles it to be exempt. In this case it may be sufficient to observe (though perhaps it is hardly necessary) that it is impossible to deny, with respect to the University of Edinburgh, that it is at once the owner of the property in a character which does not exempt it, and it is also the occupant of the property in a character and for a purpose that entitles it to receive, and in respect of which it does actually receive, a certain amount of pecuniary value which must be regarded as incidental to its occupation of this property. Although, therefore,
Page: 623↓
I therefore, on these grounds, entirely concur in the motion of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, that the defender ought to be assoilzied from the conclusions of this summons, with expenses, extending also to the expenses of the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary. The interlocutor of the Second Division will be reversed, and there will be an absolvitor from the conclusions of the summons. That I apprehend will be the proper form of order.
The cases that were decided anterior to the Mersey Dock case and other recent cases, and the practice that prevailed anterior to those decisions, did, I think, give great countenance to the judgment pronounced in the Court below; and had it not been for these recent cases, I do not know that I should not have concurred in that judgment, taking those former cases to be correct exponents of the law. But the principle laid down in the Mersey Dock case, and some other cases almost concomitant with it, are, I think, sufficient to show that the buildings of the University of Edinburgh are not buildings of the kind which entitle the owners and occupants of them to exemption from liability for poor-rate.
Interlocutors appealed from reversed, and defender assoilzied from conclusion of summons, with expenses, before the Lord Ordinary and the Court of Session.
Solicitors: Agents for Appellant— G. & H. Cairns, S.S.C., and Murdoch, Rodger & Gloag, Westminster.
Agents for Respondents— John Cook, W.S., and Loch & Maclaurin, Westminster.
