The High Court has ruled that a Valuation Tribunal erred in law by excluding empirical energy-output data when valuing a wind farm for rating purposes. The case returned to the court for further submissions on the precise order and costs; the court had not yet made its proposed order setting aside the Tribunal’s determination and directing a reconsideration.
Coillte Teoranta, trading as Sliabh Bawn Windfarm, appealed against a Valuation Tribunal determination dated 20 February 2020. The case came before the High Court as a case stated, a procedure in which the Tribunal refers questions of law for the court’s opinion. Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered judgment on 2 November 2022.
The dispute concerned a wind farm that was not in existence on the valuation date, 30 October 2015, but had been operating since March 2017. The valuation list was published on 15 September 2017, and the valuation certificate issued on 7 September 2017. The Tribunal assessed the property on the assumption that it existed at the earlier valuation date, but excluded data on its actual energy output.
The parties agreed that the wind farm should be valued using the receipts and expenditure method. They disputed which annual energy-output figure should be used: the ratepayer relied on actual output data, while the Commissioner of Valuation relied on a 2015 assessment prepared before construction and operation. The court held that the first six months’ operational data was relevant and available by the certificate issue date. Under section 19(5) of the Valuation Act 2001, relevant data available by that date could be considered to help achieve a correct valuation.
The judge said the Tribunal’s exclusion of the data conflicted both with that provision and with its own approach of assessing the wind farm’s “actual state” at publication. If that later date was the relevant reference point, the court said, the property’s actual output and operation formed part of its state. The court therefore answered the third and fourth questions in the case stated in the affirmative: the Tribunal had erred in law by excluding the empirical output data. It was unnecessary to answer the first and second questions.
The court also raised, on its own initiative, whether the Act instead required the property’s state to be assessed solely at the 2015 valuation date. It described that issue as unresolved and noted the parties’ submissions supporting the Tribunal’s approach. The judgment did not decide the issue. It said the Tribunal should address it on reconsideration, subject to the court’s further directions.
A separate question about a notional sinking fund for replacing physical assets was deferred pending the outcome of an appeal in another case. The High Court listed the proceedings for further submissions on 22 November 2022, including on the form of any remittal and costs.