logic by basing the landowner’s required return for releasing land for development on the discounted value of that land for that development. Encouragingly though, there is mention of benchmarks against which the RLV for a specific scheme should be measured against to assess viability.


Final thoughts


No doubt, the market value based TLV assessment and benchmarking will be the most interesting aspects of the new guidance to property professionals and are bound to bring forward much comment and debate. In principle it seems to us that as long as the landowner received more for their land than he/she could achieve by leaving it in its current use, or by pursuing a realistic alternative development scenario, then a scheme is prima facie viable. What is really needed is firm guidance on what ‘more’ means.


The Guidance also intends to deal with issues of detail such as the date for assessment relative to the date of consent, the relevance of the actual purchase price where known, the impact of holding costs since the date of purchase and more. Four appendices will cover the relevance of viability to planning; refinements to viability methodology (effects of inflation and forecasting etc.); an outline of what to include in a viability assessment; and a glossary of terms.


Clarity on viability is fundamental to an efficient planning process and the Guidance Note promises to be a very useful catalyst for a movement to a common approach. Hopefully, the Guidance will clear up some of the inconsistencies of approach and pave the way for quicker and less contentious assessments in the future.


In a forthcoming article in the


next issue of The Terrier, we hope to be able to review the published Guidance and provide more detailed analysis of its implications in practice.


Guy Emmerson


BUSINESS RATES EXEMPTION


Arize Ngwuocha


Arize who is a valuer with NPS Property Consultants Ltd gives a perspective on Local Authority and NHS joint occupation of premises


Paragraph 16 in Schedule 5 of Local Government Finance Act 1988 made provisions for exemption from business rates for properties used for the disabled. This type of properties range from charity ran welfare centres for persons with special needs, specialised workshop facilities for the disabled, to local authority office spaces occupied for the purposes of providing assistance to the disabled.


To qualify for exemption, each property that is claimed to be used for the disabled has to pass at least one following tests:


● Is it provided as a facility for training or keeping suitably occupied, persons who are disabled or who are or have been suffering from illness?


● Is it for providing welfare services for disabled persons?


● Is it a facility provided for the purposes of Section 15 of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944?


● Is it a workshop provided for the purposes of Section 3(1) of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1958?


● Is it a facility provided by a Local Authority for the purposes of Section 29(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948?


While qualification may be obvious for some properties, the reverse is the case in others and thus, more evidence to demonstrate qualification being required. This is particularly the case where an office premises is occupied by a local authority for the purposes of providing services to the disabled.


I came across such a property in while acting for local authority in the North-East of England. The client was in occupation of an office building and providing services to persons with disabilities. The functions carried out in the building ranged from pure administration, information services to needs assessment. To cut a long story short, my proposal to the Valuation Office that the property qualified for exemption was successful as I was able to provide evidence that functions performed in each of the rooms and duties of staffs therein were all aimed at providing services to the disabled for the purposes of Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948.


As every case is defined by its unique circumstances, I came across another property, similarly occupied for providing services to the disabled but jointly occupied by a local authority (LA) and the local primary care trust (PCT), under a partnership scheme aimed at providing, what both parties called, integrated services to meet the needs of persons with


54 THE TERRIER - Autumn 2011


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