Harris v Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources

[1996] QLC 155

[1996] QLC 155

 

  LAND COURT

TOOGOOLAWAH

29 November 1996

Re:     Appeals against annual valuations
Valuation of Land Act 1944
  Shire of Esk.
  (AV96-295 and AV96-296).

John P Harris
  v.
  Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources

AND

John H Harris
  v.
  Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources

(Hearing at Toogoolawah)

D E C I S I O N

Mr John P Harris and Mr John H Harris have appealed against the respondent's unimproved valuations of their lands in the Shire of Esk.  Mr JP Harris is the owner of 108.5 hectares of land in the Parishes of North and Sahl, situated about 5.6 kms east of Fernvale, fronting upon the Brisbane River.  Access has been described as a fair gravel road.  There is a small area on the eastern side of the river with steep rockfaces to the river, with the remainder being steep gravel ridges, with frontage to an unmade road.
           Under the provisions of the Valuation of Land Act 1944 ("the Act"), as at 1 January 1996, the respondent determined the unimproved value of that land at $97,000, or $894 per hectare. 
           Mr JH Harris is the owner of 494.2 hectares of land in the Parish of Sahl, situated approximately 15 kms east of Fernvale, fronting upon but to the north of the Brisbane River, opposite the land owned by his father, Mr John P Harris.
Under the provisions of the Act, as at 1 January 1996, the respondent determined the unimproved value of that land at $190,000, or $384 per hectare.

These two areas of land are worked as a family beef cattle grazing enterprise. However, as they are held in separate ownerships, they are required by the Act to be valued separately.
           At the hearing of the appeals, Mr John H Harris appeared on behalf of the appellants, while the respondent was represented by Senior Valuer, Mr DJ O'Connor and valuation evidence was given by registered valuer, Mr EG Ridley.
           There was no disagreement as to the description of land.  Mr Ridley's report described the land owned by Mr JP Harris as

" ... low forest ridges of a folding nature which for the most part descends sharply to the Brisbane River.  There is a small area of sandy lower terrace of the Brisbane River along the eastern part of the property.  The original timbers were mostly ironbark and Moreton Bay ash.  Soils are fairly shallow with some areas of gravel.  The pastures are composed of mostly native species.

Water is provided by natural supplies in the Brisbane River and by 2 dams.  "

The land owned by Mr John H Harris was described by Mr Ridley as

"... comprising approximately 200 hectares of easy sloping Brisbane River frontage, originally timbered with blue gum, Moreton Bay ash and swamp mahogany.  The soils are of sandy loam texture and are of medium fertility.  The balance of the property comprises steep forest ridges timbered with ironbark, spotted gum and Moreton Bay Ash.  Soils are shallow with areas of gravel and exposed rock.

The pastures overall are composed of native species, mainly couch grass, pitted blue grass, bunched spear grass and some kangaroo grass in sheltered areas.

There are natural supplies in the Brisbane River where stock have access to a single drinking point.  In addition water is pumped 700 metres to a dam.  "

Although substantially agreeing with Mr Ridley's description of the land, Mr Harris emphasised the poor access for cattle to river water because of the steepness of the river bank.  Both properties have irrigation licences and an area of approximately 3 hectares of light sandy loam is cultivated and irrigated on his father's property for the growing of supplementary fodder crops.  Mr Harris said that he intended to irrigate an area of approximately 20 hectares of improved pastures on his property.  However, it was clear that these areas are not cultivation lands in the true sense, but when irrigated will provide useful supplementary feed.
           Mr Harris was also concerned that the poor access to his property had not been adequately taken into account in arriving at the valuation.  He described the access as follows:

"Access to the above land is via Pine Mountain Road and E. Summerville's Road across a low level bridge crossing the Brisbane River namely Burton's Bridge.  From E. Summerville's Road access is via B.K. Road which is maintained for approximately half a kilometre.  The remainder is an unformed track for approximately three kilometres and one of these is badly eroded so much so the local live stock carrier does not wish to carry cattle from the property.  This road becomes untrafficable even on horseback.  Access to my property is obtained through a neighbours private property on a verbal agreement.  If such an agreement was even revoked or if my neighbour sold his property access could very well be denied making transfer of cattle to and from my property impossible by livestock transport.

When the river is in flood access is available by four-wheel drive along a track from Lake Manchester Road at Kholo.  Vehicular access across the river is not possible so the property is effectively severed by the river.  "

Mr Harris said that the main concern of the appellants was that their lands had been the subject of higher percentage increases in their valuations since 1992 than had neighbouring lands.  He said that there had been no recent sales in the area to justify the increases in those valuations.  Nearby land owned by ET Russell had increased by approximately 11% since 1992, whereas the subject lands had increased by more than 40%.  Mr Harris also referred to the valuations of land owned by Schmidt which had increased by 20.8%, to the valuation of lands owned by Summerville which increased by 22% and the valuation of lands owned by Ladbrook which increased by 21%.
           However, it emerged that until 1993, the two subject lands had been owned by Mr JP Harris, when the land north of the Brisbane River was transferred to Mr JH Harris.  Until that time the whole of the land had been valued as one parcel.  Mr JP Harris had appealed against the unimproved value determined by the Valuer-General as at 31 March 1988.  In a written decision dated 31 October 1989 (V89-173), Member of the Land Court, Mr CH Carter, reduced the unimproved value by 15%.  Mr Carter's judgment indicates that the reason for the reduction was that the valuer for the Valuer-General had been unaware that since the construction of the Wivenhoe Dam it was not possible to cross the Brisbane River with livestock from one part of the land to the other, so that the area of the property to the north of the river was effectively severed from the area of the property to the south of the river.       Accordingly, he had reduced the valuation by 15% to allow for the extra costs of working the property because of the severance by the river.
           However, in the present situation where the land north of the river is in a separate ownership, that severance problem no longer exists.  Each property has to be valued as a separate entity and, although it is worked as a family aggregation, that cannot be taken into account in assessing the separate valuations.
           Mr Ridley gave evidence that when he made an earlier valuation following the change of ownership, he had effectively removed the 15% disability allowance from the separate valuations, which explains why the increases in valuations since 1992 have been greater in respect of the subject lands than for the valuations of surrounding lands.
           Although Mr Harris argued that there should be a continuation of the severance allowance, in the circumstances I feel that the difference in valuations was satisfactorily explained by Mr Ridley.
           Mr Ridley gave evidence that he was also responsible for the valuations of the surrounding properties and to the best of his recollection he had increased all properties in the area by approximately 5% between 1 January 1995 and 1 January 1996.  The exception was the property owned by Mr Powell, which is situated only a short distance to the west of the property owned by Mr JH Harris.  Mr Ridley said that the Powell property had attracted no increase in valuation, because it was more remote from the major centre of Ipswich than the subject lands.  However, Mr Harris pointed out that the Powell property is closer to Fernvale than his property and therefore it should have been treated similarly.
           Although there may be some difference of opinion about the relativity of the valuation of the Powell property and the valuation of the property owned by Mr JH Harris, the Land Appeal Court has held that while maintenance of correct relativity is of considerable importance for rating valuations, the use of the principle of relativity should not be preferred to the exclusion of relevant (even if not ideal) sales evidence:  WM and TJ Fischer v. The Valuer-General (1983) 9 QLCR 44 at 46, quoted with approval by the Land Appeal Court in Grahn v. The Valuer-General (1992) 14 QLCR 327.
           In Barnwell v. The Valuer-General (1989) 13 QLCR 13 at pp.16 and 17, the Land Appeal Court said that if possible the Valuer-General should obtain uniformity between different blocks in the same land category or type, but should do so (preferably by reference to sales of comparable land) by correcting inaccuracies rather than by making an inaccurate assessment in order to obtain uniform error. This case was also cited with approval in Grahn's case.
           The valuations that were applied by Mr Ridley to the subject lands were based on sales of three properties, two in the vicinity of the township of Moore and the other to the south of Boonah.  Mr Ridley said that he chose those particular sales because he could be confident that they were sales for primary production purposes only and were not tainted by the higher values attributable to rural residential lands. 
The provisions of s.17 of the Act require that in making the valuation of land exclusively used for purposes of "farming" (which includes the business or industry of grazing), any enhancement in the value of that land because of a potential for any other purpose must be disregarded. The difficulty of obtaining sales evidence of "farming" properties in an area which is closely settled was considered in some detail by the learned then President of the Land Court, Mr WFG Smith, in APM Forest Pty Ltd v. The Valuer-General (1975) 2 QLCR 30 at pp.38-40. In that case Mr Smith indicated that valuers may have to go somewhat more distant than usually regarded as acceptable to obtain sales evidence to ensure that the sales were not tainted by a potential for some higher purpose.
           Mr Ridley, correctly in my opinion, applied that principle in his selection of sales evidence.  Unfortunately Mr Harris did not know any of the three sales and was unable to comment on Mr Ridley's comparisons with the subject lands.  Furthermore, Mr Harris was not able to produce any sales of comparable lands to refute those sales produced by Mr Ridley. 
           Although Mr Harris has raised some issues about the relativity of the valuations of neighbouring lands, particularly that applied to the Powell property, with those applied to the subject lands, I prefer the evidence of Mr Ridley on the basis that he has relied upon comparable sales to value the subject lands, whereas Mr Harris' arguments are based on relativity.  The findings of the Land Appeal Court in Grahn's case require that I should prefer Mr Ridley's approach to that of Mr Harris.
           Furthermore, Mr Ridley was well aware of the matters raised by Mr Harris, the difficult access to his property, the powerlines, the steep river banks, the topography and nature of the soil and other difficulties in respect of both properties.  He said that sufficient allowance was made for those matters in arriving at his valuations.  This was not refuted by Mr Harris.
Therefore, after consideration of the whole of the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that Mr Harris has not been able to rebut the statutory presumption of correctness created by s.33 of the Valuation of Land Act. The predecessor of s.33 was considered by the High Court in Brisbane City Council v. The Valuer-General (1978) 140 CLR 41. At pp.56-57, Gibbs J. (as he then was), with whom the other members of the Court agreed, said that the statutory presumption can be rebutted only if it is shown that the valuing authority acted upon a wrong principle, or made a serious error of fact, or that the valuation was made by a method fundamentally erroneous. In these cases, Mr Ridley on behalf of the respondent has not acted upon a wrong principle, nor has he adopted a method fundamentally erroneous, nor has it been shown that he made a serious error of fact. Therefore, these appeals must fail.
           Accordingly, in respect of appeal AV96-295 against Valuation No. 35875/5, the appeal is dismissed and the valuation of the Chief Executive in the sum of $190,000 is affirmed.
           In the case of AV96-296 against Valuation No. 34618, the appeal is dismissed and the valuation of the Chief Executive in the sum of $97,000 is affirmed.

President of the Land Court