THE STAR HOTEL

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 159, 7 July 1899, Page 2

THE STAR HOTEL

A QUESTION OF VALUE.

JUDGMENT FOR THE CITY

COUNCIL.

At the Magistrate's Court this morning, Mr H. W. Brabant, S.M., gave judgment in the objection made in the Assessment Court on Wednesday last by the occtipier and the owners of the Star Hotel, in the hotel being assessed at the rateable value of £600 per annum, the averment of the objection being that the rateable value is less than that stated in the valuation roll. After hearing argument Mr Brabant adjourned the case so that he might give a written judgment, because of the importance of the question as a guide to the valuer for next year.

This morning, in delivering judgment, Mr Brabant said if the main contention of the objectors were to prevail, viz., that the ho lei must be valued as a building and not a-s an hotel, it would affect the valuation of all the hotels in Auckland, and the rateable value of all those on the valuation list would, he concluded, be wrong. Mr Brabant quoted the provision in the Rating Act, 1894, as amended bjr the Act of 1895, for ascertaining' the rateable value, and added that in the city of Auckland the annual system was in force. The evidence before him showed ths present city valuer placed the value of the Star Hotel at £600 per annum, and the late city valuer last year placed it at the same sum. Mr Cooper said the Government valuation had no bearing- on the borough valuation, and that the hotel should be valued as an hotel, and not as a building. His Worship referred to English cases quoted by counsel, and he concluded: These cases do not appear to be conclusive on the present question, because in England the rateable value is the value at which the premises would let from j'ear to year, and there is no provision such as that in our Act, that "the annual value shall in no case be less than 5 per cent, on the value of the fee simple," and it is this provision which it is agreed raises the annual value of the Star Hotel to £600. I am, therefore, driven to interpret the provision myself. I may remark that Mr Napier in his argument dwelt on a dictum of Lord Esher, M.R., in the case of Dodds v. Poa, Law Union of South Shields, where he says "the rateable value is to be found according to the method pointed out by the Act of Parliament." I think there can be no doubt that the words "value of the fee simple" mean the value at which the property would sell. It appears equally plain that the fact of the building being ■ licensed as an hotel would affect the value to sell. The Government Valuation df Land Act provides at section 5 a particular mode of arriving at values, and under that possibly the use a building is intended for or put to cannot be taken into Consideration, I pass no opinion on that question, but this Act was not passed until two years after the Rating Act, and it is provided at sec-' tion 9 "that the valuation roll prepared under it shall be the standard roll from which the valuation rolls of all local authorities rating on the capital or on the unimproved value shall be framed." The plain inference is that it was intended to exclude the rolls of local authorities rating on the annual value, as the city of Auckland does. The evidence is that the hotel is worth £12,000 as such, and I must decide to sustain the valuation.