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VALUATION FOR RATING
The "Report on Valuation for Rating Purposes"
(Stationery Office 2/-) is the first fruit of the deli
berations of a Committee of Officials of
the
Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries, Educ
ation, Finance, Health and Local Government
set up by the Minister of the last named Depart
ment to examine the system of financing local
authorities
and
to
recommend
any desirable
changes. It is worthy of study both for what it
contains and what it portends.
Under
the Valuation
(Ireland) Act,
1852,
which envisaged "one uniform valuation of lands
and
tenements .... for all public and
local
assessments." Griffith, with the help of the maps
produced by the Ordinance Survey, in the years
1853-1865 valued all rateable hereditaments (in
cluding buildings, lands, mines, commonage and
other profits, railways, canals) in the thirty-two
counties, valuing land by its net annual value
based on
its capacity to yield the then staple
crops and agricultural produce, the tenant paying
outgoings other than tithe rent charge, and valu
ing buildings and other hereditaments by their
annual letting value over and above rates, in
surance and maintenance. Complaint has been
made that Griffith's valuations of land, admirable
in meticulous attention to every detail affecting
value
in accordance with the formula chosen,
did not achieve the desired uniformity because
standards varied as experience was gained and
because the valuations of the counties surveyed
in the early years reflected the chaotic condition
of agriculture immediately following the Famine.
By Section 34 of the Act of 1852 a County
Council and by Section 65 of the Local Govern
ment Act, 1898 a County Borough may apply
for a general revision of valuation of all property
in the jurisdiction. Few such applications were
made, but Dublin was revalued in 1908-1915 on
the basis of 1913-14 rental values less 10 per cent
resulting in a 15 per cent increase in valuations;
Waterford was revalued in 1924-26 on such rental
values without deduction of 48 per cent increase
effected; in 1946 building in built-up areas of
County Galway were revalued at 1914
letting
values, which were about a third of those ruling
at the time of revision and valuations increased
by 52 per cent in Galway City, by 18 per cent in
Tuam, by 12 per cent in Ballinasloe, whilst a
similar general revision in Buncrana gave a 50
per cent increase in the total valuation of that
Urban District. Since there has been no general
revaluation of the country and the "annual re-
68
vision," now to be mentioned, does not apply to
land,
in general,
land
in
the State still holds
Griffith's valuation of over a century ago.
The Commissioner of Valuation can revise no
valuation of his own accord, but rating authorities
must submit annual lists of tenements and here
ditaments the valuation of which require revision,
their collectors having a duty
to
furnish
the
necessary information. From the revision effected
in consequence a "first appeal lies to the Com
missioner himself, and from his decision a "second
appeal" goes to the Circuit Court. The Report
complains that collectors were not too assiduous
in
the discharge of
this unpopular duty, and
that in practice buildings were rarely listed for
revision save when they necessarily came to the
notice of the local authority because they were
new or because a planning permission was sought,
or a loan or reconstruction grant made in respect
of them. Notwithstanding lack of zeal for re
vision, the Committee calculates that more than
half the 676,000 houses in the State have been
revalued in the past thirty years.
In these annual revisions, successive Commis
sioners of Valuation encountered first the general
rise in the value of property at the end of the
last century and then the steep increases due to
two world wars. Revaluing current values would
have created a sharp disparity between the valu
ation of properties revalued and those not re
valued,
and
consequently
the
Commissioner
"made deductions
to make relative,"
in other
words
scaled down his valuation—until
1947
under the influence of the Rent Restrictions Acts
on the basis of the estimated 1914 rent—in an
attempt to relate it fairly to other similar pro
perty in the neighbourhood. Since 1947 the Com
missioner has valued unrented buildings at 3 per
cent to 4 per cent of their capital value and
rented buildings at one-third of their reasonable
current rent, ignoring inflated capital value or
rent due to post war conditions.
The net result of lack of revision in respect
of land and of partial revision on different prin
ciples in respect of buildings is that valuations are
often out of date, frequently inconsistent and ir
relative and consequently inequitable as between
one rate or taxpayer and another. The Com
missioner complained too, that the appeal decis
ions of Circuit Court Judges have resulted in dis
proportion between
the valuations of different
types of property in the same area and between
the same types of property in the same area and
between the same types of property in different
areas.