Rating and Valuation Act 1961

Rating Provisions

11 Reduction and remission of rates payable by charitable and other organisations

(1) If notice in writing is given to the rating authority that—

(a) any hereditament occupied by, or by trustees for, a charity and wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes (whether of that charity or of that and other charities); or

(b) any other hereditament, being a hereditament held upon trust for use as an almshouse,

is one falling within this subsection, then, subject to the provisions of this section, the amount of any rates chargeable in respect of the hereditament for any period, beginning not earlier than the rate period in which the notice is given, during which the hereditament is one falling within either paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of this subsection shall not exceed one-half of the amount which would be chargeable apart from the provisions of this subsection:

Provided that where a hereditament ceases to be one falling within the said paragraphs (a) and (b), a previous notice given for the purposes of this subsection shall not have effect as respects any subsequent period during which the hereditament falls within either of those paragraphs.

(2) No relief under the foregoing subsection shall be given in the case of a hereditament falling within paragraph (a) thereof for any period during which the hereditament is occupied by an institution specified in the First Schedule to this Act.

(3) The Minister may by order amend the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act by adding any institution which in his opinion ought to be classified with the institutions mentioned in that Schedule or omitting any institution or altering the description of any institution.

An order under this subsection may be made so as to have effect from any date not earlier than the beginning of the rate period in which it is made, and any statutory instrument containing an order under this subsection shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(4) Without prejudice to the powers conferred by subsection (4) of section two of the Act of 1925, a rating authority shall have power to reduce or remit the payment of rates chargeable in respect of—

(a) any hereditament falling within paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1) of this section ;

(b) any other hereditament which is occupied for the purposes of one or more institutions or other organisations which are not established or conducted for profit and whose main objects are charitable or are otherwise philanthropic or religious or concerned with education, social welfare, science, literature or the fine arts;

(c) any other hereditament which is occupied for the purposes of a club, society or other organisation not established or conducted for profit and is wholly or mainly used for purposes of recreation,

for any such period as is mentioned in the following subsection:

Provided that any such reduction or remission shall cease to have effect on a change in the occupation of the hereditament in respect of which it was granted.

(5) Any reduction or remission of rates determined under the foregoing subsection may at the discretion of the rating authority be granted—

(a) for the year in which, or the year next following that in which, the determination to grant it is made; or

(b) for a specified term of years, not exceeding five, beginning not earlier than the year in which the determination was made nor more than twenty-four months after the date of the determination ; or

(c) for an indefinite period beginning not earlier than the last mentioned year subject, however, to the exercise by the rating authority of their powers under the following subsection.

(6) Where any such reduction or remission is granted for an indefinite period the rating authority may, by not less than twelve months' notice in writing given to the occupiers of the hereditament, terminate or modify the reduction or remission as from the end of a year specified in the notice.

(7) The foregoing provisions of this section shall not apply to any hereditament to which section seven of the Act of 1955 (which provides for relief from rates in the case of places of religious worship and church and chapel halls) applies or to any hereditament occupied (otherwise than as trustee) by any authority having, within the meaning of the Local Loans Act, 1875, power to levy a rate.

(8) Section fifty-nine of the Act of 1925 (which relates to the service of notices) shall apply to notices authorised to be served for the purposes of this section as it applies to notices authorised to be served for the purposes of that Act.

(9) In this section " charity " means an institution or other organisation established for charitable purposes only and " organisation " includes any persons administering a trust; and a hereditament an interest in which belongs to a charity or any ecclesiastical corporation and in which (in right of that interest)—

(a) the persons from time to time holding any full-time office as clergyman or minister of any religious denomination, or

(b) any particular person holding such an office,

have or has a residence from which to perform the duties of the office, or in which (in right of the said interest) accommodation is being held available to provide such a residence for such a person, shall be treated for the purposes of this section as occupied by a charity and wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes, whether apart from this provision it would be so treated or not.

12 Provisions supplementary to foregoing section

(1) The foregoing section shall apply to rates made for periods beginning on or after the date of the coming into force of the first valuation lists to come into force after the passing of this Act.

(2) On that date the following enactments shall cease to have effect, that is to say—

(a) section eight of the Act of 1955 (reductions and remissions of rates payable by charitable and other organisations) ;

(b) the Scientific Societies Act, 1843 (exemption for societies instituted for the purposes of science, literature or the fine arts exclusively);

(c) the Sunday and Ragged Schools (Exemption from Rating) Act, 1869;

(d) section sixty-four of the Education Act, 1944 (exemption of voluntary schools).

(3) On that date section seven hundred and thirty-one of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 (which confers exemptions from taxes, duties and rates in respect of lighthouses, buoys and beacons and in respect of property of the Trinity House, other lighthouse authorities and the Ministry of Transport) shall cease to exempt from rates any property belonging to or occupied by the Trinity House except lighthouses, buoys and beacons and any property within the same curtilage as, and occupied for the purposes of, a lighthouse.

(4) Where an exemption from liability for rates in respect of a hereditament subsisted immediately before that date by virtue of the Scientific Societies Act, 1843, section seven hundred and thirty-one of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, or section sixty-four of the Education Act, 1944, and, but for subsection (2) or (3) of this section, an exemption in respect of the hereditament would have continued to subsist after that date.—

(a) no rates shall be payable in respect of the hereditament as respects the year beginning with that date; and

(b) as respects each of the next four succeeding years, the amounts of rates payable in respect of the hereditament shall (without prejudice to any reduction or remission under subsection (4) of the foregoing section) be respectively one-fifth, two-fifths, three-fifths and four-fifths of the amount which would be payable apart from the provisions of this subsection and that subsection:

Provided that paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection shall not apply in relation to any hereditament except as respects any period as respects which an exemption for that hereditament would have subsisted but for the said subsection (2) or (3).

(5) The Minister may, on the application of any rating authority appearing to him to be concerned, by order repeal or amend any local enactment which confers an exemption from, or a power to reduce or remit a payment of, rates in respect of any particular hereditament or of hereditaments of any class if it appears to him that a right to relief arises in respect of that hereditament or hereditaments of that class under subsection (1) of the foregoing section, or that a reduction or remission may be granted in respect thereof under subsection (4) of that section, and may by that order make such other amendments of any other local enactments as appear to him to be necessary in consequence of the repeal or amendment and such transitional provision as appears to him to be necessary or expedient in connection with the matter.

In this subsection " local enactment " means a provision of any local and personal Act or private Act or of any order or other instrument in the nature of any such Act.

(6) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that for the purposes of the Education Act, 1944, the expenses of maintaining a voluntary school include the payment of rates.

13 Liability of parks, etc., to be rated

(1) A park which has been provided by, or is under the management of, a local authority and is for the time being available for free and unrestricted use by members of the public shall, while so available, be treated for rating purposes as if it had been dedicated in perpetuity for such use as aforesaid.

(2) In this section—

• references to a park include references to a recreation or pleasure ground, a public walk, an open space within the meaning of the Open Spaces Act, 1906. or a playing field provided under the Physical Training and Recreation Act, 1937;

• " local authority " means the council of a county, county borough, county district, metropolitan borough or borough included in a rural district, a parish council or parish meeting, the Common Council of the City of London or the Council of the Isles of Scilly, or any two or more of them acting in combination.

(3) This section shall apply to rates made for periods beginning on or after the coming into force of the first valuation lists to come into force after the passing of this Act.

14 Abolition of rate books

(1) The following provisions of this section shall apply to rates made for periods beginning on or after such day as the Minister may by order appoint.

(2) It shall not be necessary to use rate books.

(3) A certificate signed by a duly authorised officer of a rating authority—

(a) stating that a rate has been made or published by the authority on a date or dates specified in the certificate ; or

(b) stating the value at a specified date of a hereditament within the authority's area, the amount of rates chargeable in respect of the hereditament or whether any, and if so what, amount has been paid in satisfaction of rates due thereon,

shall be evidence of the matters stated in the certificate.

(4) A rating authority shall, on being so requested by a person who is or was liable in respect of a hereditament in the area of the authority for rates for any period in the current year or any of the nine years preceding that year, give him a statement of the rates payable or paid in respect of the hereditament for any of those years or any other year in respect of which the person is still liable for arrears at the time of the request.

(5) Where a person satisfies a rating authority that he is or was liable, in respect of a hereditament in the area of the authority, to indemnify any other person for rates, he shall be entitled to the like statement under the foregoing subsection as that other person is entitled to.

15 Rating of owners

(1) If an order made by the Minister so provides, subsection (1) of section eleven of the Act of 1925 (which empowers a rating authority to direct that owners instead of occupiers shall be rated in the case of hereditaments of a rateable value not exceeding eighteen pounds or, in London and certain other areas, twenty-five pounds) shall have effect as if for the limits of eighteen and twenty-five pounds there were substituted such other limits respectively as may be specified in the order.

A statutory instrument containing an order under this subsection shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(2) The allowance which may be made under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of the said section eleven to owners rated under that subsection shall be ten per cent. of the amount payable in respect of rates, and accordingly section one hundred and twenty-two of the Act of 1948 (which enables the rating authority to increase the said allowance to fifteen per cent.) shall cease to have effect.

(3) Paragraph (b) of the said subsection (1) (which requires allowances to be made to owner-occupiers by local authority owners which pass on allowances to their tenants) shall cease to have effect.

(4) In subsection (2) of the said section eleven (which among other things enables a rating authority to make an allowance of fifteen per cent. to owners undertaking to pay rates on certain hereditaments whether occupied or not) for the words " fifteen per cent." there shall be substituted the words " ten per cent. ".

(5) An order under subsection (1) of this section shall not affect any person's liability for rates for any period before the coming into force of the first valuation lists to come into force after the date of the order, and subsections (2) to (4) shall not affect allowances payable in respect of rates for any period before the coming into force of the first valuation lists to come into force after the passing of this Act.

16 Withholding of rates pending settlement of proposals

(1) In relation to valuation lists coming into force after the passing of this Act subsection (7) of section one of the Act of 1955 (which limits the amount of rates recoverable where a proposal to reduce the value of a hereditament is served on the valuation officer before the end of the year beginning with the date on which the fist comes into force) shall be amended as follows.

(2) The period within which a proposal must be served if the subsection is to apply shall be the period of six months beginning with the date on which the valuation list comes into force.

(3) The said subsection (7) shall not apply in relation to a proposal to reduce the value shown in a valuation list of any hereditament unless—

(a) it is served on the valuation officer by the occupier of the hereditament and no previous such proposal has been served on the valuation officer in relation to the same list by any occupier of the hereditament, or

(b) it is served on the valuation officer by the owner of the hereditament (being a person who in pursuance of section eleven of the Act of 1925 is rated or has undertaken to pay or collect the rates in respect of the hereditament) and no previous such proposal has been served on the valuation officer in relation to the same list by any such owner of the hereditament.

(4) At the end of the subsection there shall be added the words " increased by half the difference between that amount and the amount which would be recoverable as aforesaid apart from this subsection ".

(5) Where a change in the law determining the relationship between the net annual value and rateable value of hereditaments of any specified description, or of hereditaments generally, operates as from the coming into force of any valuation lists (whether the change arises from the coming into operation, amendment or repeal of any provision or from the fact that a provision applying to the previous lists or the last rate period therein does not apply to the new lists), and so operates as to increase the rateable values to which the change applies, the said subsection (7) shall have effect in relation to hereditaments of which the rateable values as shown in the new lists are affected by the change as if for the reference to the total amount of rates levied on a hereditament for the last year before a list came into force there were substituted a reference to the total amount of the rates which would have been levied thereon for that year if the rateable value for that year had been related to the actual net annual value for the year in the same way as it would have been related to the net annual value if the change had had effect as respects that year.

17 Refund of overpayments

(1) Where it is shown to the satisfaction of a rating authority that any amount paid in respect of rates, and not recoverable apart from this section, could properly be refunded on the ground that—

(a) the amount of any entry in the valuation list was excessive, or

(b) a rate was levied otherwise than in accordance with the valuation list, or

(c) any exemption or relief to which a person was entitled was not allowed, or

(d) the hereditament was unoccupied during any period, or

(e) the person who made a payment in respect of rates was not liable to make that payment,

the rating authority may refund that amount or a part thereof:

Provided that no refund shall be made—

(i) unless application therefor was made before the end of the sixth year after that in which the amount was paid;

(ii) if the amount paid was charged on the basis, or in accordance with the practice, generally prevailing at the time when the payment was demanded.

(2) Before determining whether a refund should be made—

(a) in a case falling within paragraph (a) of the foregoing subsection, or

(b) in a case falling within paragraph (c) thereof where the exemption or relief was one which ought to have appeared in the valuation list,

a rating authority shall obtain a certificate from the valuation officer as to the manner in which in his opinion the hereditament in question should have been treated for the purposes of the valuation list, and the certificate shall be binding on the authority.