[2025] UKUT 256 (LC)

The Property is an aggregation of several parts, all constructed around steel portal frames with external box profile cladding. The southern section (shown at the bottom left of the plan) contains a Christmas grotto, a café, play area, and a retail area used for sales of Christmas decorations and paraphernalia. This latter area is also equipped with a mezzanine storage platform. There are two areas used for the display, sale, and netting of trees. These are shown on the right hand side of the plan and are open sided. They are the two largest elements of the property as it now stands and extend to 455.5m² and 894.2m² respectively. Outside of the Christmas period they are left empty or used for storing agricultural equipment. Much of the southern section is mothballed outside the Christmas period but the furniture, fittings and stock are left in place. It is also used as a receiving and storage area for stock that arrives during the course of the year.

Mrs Jenny Schroeder (the wife of Mr Schroeder) appeared as a witness of fact at the hearing and suggested that the preparation necessary for opening for the Christmas sales period only took “a week” but confirmed that Christmas stock was stored in the sales area after it arrived on site about three months before Christmas. Unfortunately, despite being involved in the commercial side of the business for a considerable period she was unable to accurately recall many operational details. The hearing bundle contained screenshots of social media posts by Mr Schroeder’s staff which showed stock arriving in October 2017 and August 2018. A further post depicted staff readying the shop in late September 2022.

Mr Schroeder said that the buildings comprising the Property are “agricultural buildings used in connection with farmland and entirely ancillary to the farming use. The planning permission is for agricultural use…”. However, full details of the planning application made in 2016 (16/502112/FULL) appear to be unavailable. There seems to have been an additional planning application in 2018 (reference 18/501362/FULL) as to which correspondence was provided. This suggests that in 2018 permission was given for the construction of additional accommodation which is now used as the larger of two open sided sales/storage areas. We were also provided with an aerial photograph depicting the Property in 2015 which shows no buildings other than one large building which corresponds to the café/shop and grotto areas. A second photograph was included in the hearing bundle which showed the situation as at May 2018 when the smaller of the open sided areas had been constructed. By 2022 a substantial new open sided area to the north had been added.

The VO received a report from Maidstone District Council, the relevant billing authority, on 25^th of June 2021 and set about making new assessments with a view to bringing the Property into the rating list. Following an inspection by the VO on 2 February 2022 the Property was entered onto the Rating List with effect from 1 April 2017. Mr Schroeder’s challenge was made on 30 of June 2022. It read as follows:

“30th June 2022

In regards to Kingswood Christmas Trees, Gravelly Bottom Road, Kingswood, ME17 3NU, I am challenging your decision on the business rates for this property because the property should be removed from the rating list.

The reason this property should be removed from the rating list is the fact that the building is an agricultural building and the use is ancillary farm use and is only used for trading for 4 weeks of the year. This is a very similar set up to all other Christmas Tree growers in England, none of whom have been asked to pay such rates. This is also exactly the same as the building I have directly next to this one, which has correctly been declared as exempt due to the agricultural use of the property.

I thank you for your solving this matter.”

The Appellant’s ‘Challenge’ was made on a single sheet of paper to which he appended some photographs. The VO website contains a form for the submission of a challenge. It contains a number of grounds for the user to select and one of these is that the property should be deleted from the rating list. This form was not used in this case but since it was clear that Mr Schroeder intended that the property should be deleted and there was no intention to query the valuation the VO accepted it as a challenge under the sixth of the grounds on the form (‘I want to remove (delete) this property from the rating list’).

Following this appeal to the Upper Tribunal, the VO inspected the property again and decided that the assessment ought to be amended to rateable value £16,250 with effect from 1 April 2017. We can discern from the valuation forming part of the decision notice that £1,985 of rateable value had been ascribed to the larger of the two open sided areas but this part of the Property was not constructed until after the material day. However, by the time it was realised that the assessment was excessive the 2017 List had closed and the existing, higher entry therefore remains unaltered.