[2025] UKUT 224 (LC)

This is rather simpler. The property was let in Category A condition, and there was no capital contribution from the landlord. The VO therefore argued that the value of the property to the tenant is best seen – in the absence of appropriate Category B comparables – by taking the effective Category A rent (which the VO says is £80 per m²) and deriving an uplift of £30 per m² for the Category B fitting by annualising the actual cost of the Category B work which gives a rateable value of £110 per m² or £54,000.

Again the VTE rejected the ratepayer’s argument that the Category B works added nothing to the rateable value; it agreed that the Category B works lifted the rateable value above the Category A rental, but did not accept the VO’s approach to valuing that uplift. The President reasoned, again, from what he understood to be an agreed level of Category B uplift in London, and took the view that costs in Liverpool were lower than in London and also lower than in Manchester. He arrived at a Category A valuation of £80 per m² with an uplift of £10, giving a rateable value of £44,000.