Section 26 – Assessor information notices
122.Section 26 gives power to assessors to give written notices to a range of persons requiring those persons to provide such information as the assessor may need for the purpose of carrying out the assessor’s functions in relation to the lands and heritages referred to in a notice. The principal function of assessors is valuing lands and heritages.(30) Examples of the types of information needed for assessors to carry out their functions might include, for example, information about the purposes for which the lands and heritages are used or information needed to establish the identity of the proprietor, tenant or occupier of the lands and heritages.
123.The persons to whom notices may be given are: (a) a person who the assessor thinks is a proprietor, tenant or occupier of the lands and heritages, and (b) any other person who the assessor thinks has information which is reasonably required for the exercise of the assessor’s functions.
124.Subsection (4) of section 26 provides for legal professional privilege to apply if, for example, a person to whom a notice under subsection (1)(b) is sent is a lawyer.
125.An assessor information notice must be given in writing and the person who receives it has 28 days, starting with the day the notice is given, to comply. A person who knowingly provides false or misleading information in reply to an assessor information notice commits an offence – see section 29. Section 30 provides for civil penalties for failing to comply with a notice.
126.These provisions are a more modern, broader replacement for section 7 of the 1854 Act and that section is therefore repealed by section 26(5).
Assessors are responsible for valuing lands and heritages in the area of their valuation authority or joint valuation board. But, in addition, some assessors have responsibility for valuing particular types of lands and heritages throughout Scotland. This means that, for example, the assessor for Lanarkshire may give an assessor information notice requiring information to be provided about lands and heritages used for electricity generation, even if the lands and heritages are outwith Lanarkshire (because that assessor is, at the time of publication of these Notes, responsible for valuing all such facilities across Scotland).
