Appeal in the Land Valuation Appeal Court of the Court of Session concerning the valuation of unit in the Silverburn Shopping Centre in Glasgow. The unit was a deli selling food and coffee as a franchise of Coffee Republic. The assessor entered the unit on the Roll as a shop with an annual value of £159,000 as it was not a licensed restaurant, was adjacent to shops and could be easily altered to shop use. However the Valuation Appeal Committee allowed an appeal by the unit’s owner, Monti Marino and applied a lower ‘restaurant’ rate entering a value of £87,000. The assessor then appealed the Committee’s decision to the Court of Session.

The court refused the appeal noting that it has long been established that lands and heritage are valued in their current state without regard to the potential for physical adaption (providing that use is beneficial and is not subject to arbitrary restrictions).

The question of whether the subjects should have been entered in the Roll as a shop or as a restaurant or café was a question of fact for the Committee. At least five considerations pointed to the unit being a café or restaurant:

1.  the layout of the premises with tables and chairs for diners and seats outside;
2. the extent of food-based spending at the premises by comparison with food outlets that are valued as shops;
3. the fact that only a minority of the trade was take-away;
4. the fact that food was prepared on the premises for service at the tables; and
5. the availability of customer toilets.

The Committee’s decision was not unreasonable and there was therefore no error in law. Also, with regard to the assessor’s contention that the Committee should not have ignored the rental evidence of the zoned shops, the Committee was entitled to adopt that valuation which it considered to be supported by the evidence relating to other food outlets at the Centre. Since the Committee regarded the subjects as a restaurant, it was entitled to reject the values taken by the assessor from shops in the mall.

The full judgement is available here.

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