Gurney v The Valuer-General
[2010] QLC 141
•22 November 2010
LAND COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION:Gurney v The Valuer-General [2010] QLC 0141
PARTIES:Robert Alvin Charles Gurney
(applicant)
v.The Valuer-General
(respondent)
FILE NO: VLA417-10
DIVISION: Land Court of Queensland
PROCEEDING: Jurisdiction – Appeal against Unimproved Valuation
DELIVERED ON: 22 November 2010
DELIVERED AT: Brisbane
HEARD AT: Brisbane
MEMBER: Mr BR O'Connor, Judicial Registrar
ORDER:The Court has no jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
CATCHWORDS: Jurisdiction – Late filing of appeal – Whether reasonable excuse
APPEARANCES: Mr RAC Gurney for the applicant
Mr JB O’Rourke, Principal Legal Officer, for the respondent
The issue for determination in this matter is whether the Court has jurisdiction to hear the appeal lodged seven days after the due date. Section 57 of the Valuation of Land Act1944 allows for "reasonable excuse" as a cause for such delay:
"57.(1) If a notice of appeal is filed in the Land Court registry after the time stated in s.55(2), the registrar of the court must notify the owner that the appeal may not be heard unless the owner satisfies the court that the owner has a reasonable excuse for filing the notice after the time stated.
Example of 'reasonable excuse' -
The notice of the chief executive's decision or the notice of appeal was lost or delayed in the ordinary course of post."
The question then is whether the explanation for the late lodgment advanced by the appellant falls within the term "reasonable excuse" as interpreted by the cases, particularly those since the introduction of s.57 as amended in 2000.
The authorities on the term "reasonable excuse" or similar expressions are usefully collected in the decision of the Land Court in Anthony v. Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources, 10 November 2000. In essence, the authorities establish that the excuse must be "substantial" and "what one is looking for is some cause which a reasonable man would regard as sufficient a cause, consistent with a reasonable standard of conduct, the kind of thing which one might have expected to delay the taking of action by a reasonable man".
The parties submissions
Mr Gurney appearing for himself in this matter provided a brief written statement explaining why the appeal was lodged some seven days late. He states:
“When I originally lodged my objections I received acknowledgment in a few days and later received a decision on one of them which was slightly in my favour, at this time, I was not satisfied with the result and was waiting for the second result which I thought would be in the mail within a few days.
I did not receive the second result until the third of September and then put both appeals into the court on Monday the 6th of September thinking that they would both be heard together. This is why I ran out of time, as I did not realise I had exceeded my time frame.”
Counsel for the valuer-general submits that such does not amount to a reasonable excuse as interpreted by the Courts in recent times.
Decision
I am unable to locate a case with similar facts to the present. However, my view is that as the decision on objection sent to the landowner made it clear that the time of 42 days applies. With this in mind, I cannot conclude that the approach of waiting for the second notice of appeal to arrive and then lodging the two appeals together would amount to reasonable excuse. There was no suggestion of any misleading statement or conduct by a officer of the respondent to suggest such a course was permissible, given the different issue dates.
It should be noted in passing that the time limits for both objections and appeals under the new Land Valuation Act 2010 have been extended to 60 days (s.109 and s.157(2). However this does not apply to the current matter which was activated by well before the new legislation came into force on 20 September 2010 (the savings provision in the 2010 Act (s.269) makes this clear.
Order:
The Court has no jurisdiction to determine this appeal.
BR O'CONNOR
JUDICIAL REGISTRAR
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