Rating (Valuation) Bill

House of Lords

Session 1998-99
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Other Bills before Parliament

Rating (Valuation) Bill

This is the text of the Rating (Valuation) Bill, as passed by the House of Commons and introduced in the House of Lords on 25 February 1999.

EXPLANATORY NOTES
Explanatory Notes to the Bill, prepared by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, are published separately as HL Bill 27- EN.

EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The Lord Whitty has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:
In my view the provisions of the Rating (Valuation) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.

Rating (Valuation) Bill

ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES

Clause

1. Rateable value.

2. Commencement.

3. Citation and extent.

A
B I L L
TO
Make provision about valuation for purposes of non-domestic rates in England and Wales.
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

Rateable value.     1. - (1) Schedule 6 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (non-domestic rating: valuation) shall be amended as follows.

    (2) In paragraph 2(1) (rateable value to be equal to rent under letting from year to year if the tenant bore the cost of repairs etc) for the words from "if the tenant" to the end there shall be substituted "on these three assumptions-

(a) the first assumption is that the tenancy begins on the day by reference to which the determination is to be made;

(b) the second assumption is that immediately before the tenancy begins the hereditament is in a state of reasonable repair, but excluding from this assumption any repairs which a reasonable landlord would consider uneconomic;

(c) the third assumption is that the tenant undertakes to pay all usual tenant's rates and taxes and to bear the cost of the repairs and insurance and the other expenses (if any) necessary to maintain the hereditament in a state to command the rent mentioned above."

    (3) After paragraph 2(8) there shall be inserted-

"(8A) For the purposes of this paragraph the state of repair of a hereditament at any time relevant for the purposes of a list shall be assumed to be the state of repair in which, under sub-paragraph (1) above, it is assumed to be immediately before the assumed tenancy begins."

Commencement.     2. - (1) Section 1 above shall have effect in relation to rating lists to be compiled on or after the day on which this Act was passed.

    (2) Section 1 above shall be treated as having become effective on 1st April 1990 in relation to rating lists compiled before the day on which this Act was passed.

    (3) However, subsection (2) above shall not apply in relation to a hereditament if a proposal to alter a rating list in respect of the hereditament-

(a) was made before 12th March 1998 in accordance with regulations under section 55 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, and

(b) was not withdrawn or finally disposed of before 11th March 1998.

    (4) For the purposes of this section a rating list is a local or central non-domestic rating list.

Citation and extent.     3. - (1) This Act may be cited as the Rating (Valuation) Act 1999.

    (2) This Act extends to England and Wales only.

© Parliamentary copyright 1999
Prepared 26 February 1999