VALUATION CASE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19887, 26 March 1930, Page 7

VALUATION CASE.

VALUER-GENERAL'S APPEAL. SUPREME COURT'S DECISION. His Honour Mr Justice Adams yesterday gave his reserved judgment in the case in which.the Valuer-General appealed against a decision " by the Assessment Court at Christchurch in allowing an objection by James Openshaw Coop and others, dismissing it ■with costs amounting to £lO 10s. At the hearing Mr A. T l . Donnelly, with him Mr A. W. Brown, appeared for the appellant, and Mr C. S. Thomas for the respondent. In Ins judgment his Honour said that tho facts as stated by counsel were that about 20 years ago thi respondents, being tho owners Of a .block of land in the City of Christchurch with frontages to Cashel street on the south and Heorford street on .the north, subdivided the block into small sections and for that purpose laid out and formed a street known as Liverpool street, running through tho block from Cashel street to Hereford street. Section 6 of the Valuation of Land Act, 1908, which was then in force, required that a district valuation roll should be prepared for each. district setting forth in respect' of each . separate property, inter alia, the nature and value of the improvements on the land, tho unimproved value of the land; and the capital .value. At the first valuation following this subdivision the separate valuations wore accordingly made. A number of sections were afters wards sold. The district roll was revised under tho Valuation of Land Act, 1925, in tho year 1939, when the respondents were owners of five unsold sections in the subdivision, four of these being in one block on the west and one on the east of Liverpool street.

In the revised roll the values of tho block of four sections were entered an capital £9030, unimproved £9660, Improvements £270, a,id the corresponling values of the single section as £2650, and £75. The respondents lodged objections in each caßo and tho Assessment Court, adopting the view of the law contended for by counsel for the respondents, and on the facts, amended tho valuation of tbefour sections by reducing tho unimproved value to £7550 and increasing tho value of improvements to £2380, and as to the : single section, by reducing the uflimv proved value to £2060 and increasing the. value of improvements to £065."On this appeal," said his. Honour, "counsel for tho Valuer-General contended that the Assessment Court hadacted on a mistaken view of tho law' in. deciding that the value added to the land by improvements made in execution of the scheme of subdivision should be ascertained as at the date of the now. valuation in 1929; In my opinion, however, the courso taken by the Assessment Court was in strict accordance with the express terms of the definition of 'value of improvements' which first appears in Section 3 (4) of the Valuation of Land Amendment Act, 1012; and is re-enacted in Section 2 of the Act of 1925. This definition reads thus:—■ f Valno of improvements means the added value which at the date of valuation the improvements give to th.o land.' It is in harmony with the tormu of the definition of 'improvements' in the same section.

"Whatever method is adopted, there must be a separate valuation fixing the amount added to the valu© of the land by unexhausted improvement, whenever . made. The definition of the expression 'value of improvements' in the Act of 1925 requires. tfiat on each re? vision the added value, given to the land ia to be ascertained as at the time of each successive valuation. The submission of counsel for tho Valuer-General that the value of the improvements in the present case was fixed once and for all by the valuation 20 years ago, subject only to tho addition of any increase in value of tho roading,- is in ijiv opinion untenable."