[2024] UKUT 149 (LC)

Fecha: 16-Abr-2024

The law

The law

12.

The relevant parts of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (“the LGFA 1988”) read as follows:

“1.

A hereditament is exempt to the extent that it consists of any of the following—

(a)

agricultural land;

(b)

agricultural buildings.

2(1) Agricultural land is—

(a)

land used as arable, meadow or pasture ground only…

3 A building is an agricultural building if it is not a dwelling and—

(a)

it is occupied together with agricultural land and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations on that or other agricultural land …

5 (1) A building is an agricultural building if—

(a)

it is used for the keeping or breeding of livestock, or

(b)

it is not a dwelling, it is occupied together with a building or buildings falling within paragraph (a) above, and it is used in connection with the operations carried on in that building or those buildings.

(2)

Sub-paragraph (1)(a) above does not apply unless—

(a)

the building is solely used as there mentioned, or

(b)

the building is occupied together with agricultural land and used also in connection with agricultural operations on that land, and that other use together with the use mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a) is its sole use.

(3)

Sub-paragraph (1)(b) above does not apply unless—

(a)

the building is solely used as there mentioned, or

(b)

the building is occupied also together with agricultural land and used also in connection with agricultural operations on that land, and that other use together with the use mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(b) is its sole use.”

13.

Fridays’ case is that the three buildings are agricultural buildings as defined in paragraph 3(a). Therefore the issue before us can be considered in the light of two questions – are the three buildings ‘occupied together with agricultural land’, and are they used ‘solely in connection with agricultural operations on that or other agricultural land’. Both questions are in dispute. The more difficult one is whether the three buildings are “occupied together with” agricultural land, and we have to consider what the phrase means in the light of the authorities.

14.

We have been here before. In Senova Ltd v Sykes (VO) [2019] UKUT 0275 (LC) we explained that:

“18.

The leading case on the meaning of “occupied together with” remains Farmer (VO) v Buxted Poultry Ltd [1993] AC 369. This requirement remains unchanged despite the 2003 amendment and there can be no doubt of the continued authority of Buxted Poultry on this point.

…

19.

So for the appellant to qualify for exemption it must show that its offices and warehouse were, on the material days, both “in the same occupation” as agricultural land, and jointly controlled and managed with it. The agricultural land need not be contiguous, but the buildings and the land must be “worked together so as to form one agricultural unit”.”

15.

Crucial to what we have to decide in this appeal is whether we were right in Senova to say that “the meaning of “occupied together with” … remains unchanged despite the 2003 amendment”, and so we have to revisit Farmer v Buxted in order to assess whether what the House of Lords said there about the meaning of “occupied together with” remains authoritative. It is worth pointing out at this stage that in Senova the difficulty for the ratepayer was that the Tribunal found that it was not occupying any agricultural land; so the question whether the building was occupied together with other land did not arise. Therefore what we said about Farmer v Buxted in Senova was obiter and what we are going to say in the present decision does not cast any doubt on our conclusion in Senova.

16.

We agree with the parties that in order to understand the statutory provisions we have to look at the evolution of the law over the last century, and so we explain that evolution first before considering the parties’ arguments about the two requirements.