Lloyd v Department of Natural Resources and Water
[2007] QLC 83
•11 October 2007
LAND COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION:Lloyd v Department of Natural Resources and Water [2007] QLC 0083
PARTIES:Donald G, Anne E and Jeffrey D Lloyd
(appellants)
v
Chief Executive, Department of Natural Resources and Water
(respondent)
FILE NO:AV2006/0485
DIVISION:Land Court of Queensland – general division
PROCEEDING: An appeal against an annual valuation under the Valuation of Land Act1944
DELIVERED ON: 11 October 2007
DELIVERED AT: Blackall
MEMBER:Mr JJ Trickett, President
ORDER:The appeal is dismissed. The unimproved value of the subject land is affirmed at Twenty-one Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($21,500).
CATCHWORDS: Unimproved value – appeal against an annual valuation – small remote parcel of grazing land – generally hard mulga country with limited carrying capacity – lack of comparable sales – relativity with valuations of neighbouring land – Valuation of Land Act 1944
APPEARANCES: Mr A Boyd, agent, appeared for the appellants
Mr W Isdale of Counsel, Crown Law, appeared for the respondent
This an appeal by landowners against the unimproved value applied to their land in the Shire of Quilpie by the respondent under the provisions of the Valuation of Land Act 1944. That land, which has an area of 11,119ha, was valued by the respondent at $21,500, as at 1 October 2005. The owners appealed to the Land Court against that valuation, stating that their estimate of the unimproved value is $8,500.
Background
In addition to the subject land which is known as “Woomerlang”, the Lloyd family own “Cootabynia” and “Strathavon” in the Blackall Shire, and “Jedburgh” in the Barcoo Shire. Mr Don Lloyd, who gave evidence for the appellants, has been associated with lands in the area all his life. Mr Lloyd describes “Woomerlang” as a hard mulga block comprising about 25% reasonable mulga country, 25% bendee country and 50% scalded country, with hard rock just below the surface, timbered with whipstick mulga.
“Woomerlang” was purchased by the Lloyds in 1983, when their other country was drought stricken, for $50,000, without improvements and unstocked. Since then they have erected boundary fencing, but the property remains without any other improvements, except for two small shallow dams. Mr Lloyd explained that they were desperate to keep stock alive at the time they purchased the property, which is about 80 kilometres south of “Cootabynia”. They managed to save most of the stock but at a cost. They found that the low mulga will not sustain sheep, so they made a pusher to break off the top of the mulga trees, which sheep will eat. They managed to get most of the stock through the drought, but sustained heavy losses. According to Mr Lloyd, the only grass on the property is wire grass, which stock do not eat.
Mr Lloyd said they have not used the property for about 5½ years. In 2001 they took 7,000 wethers there from “Jedburgh”, which was drought stricken. They fed the sheep with supplement and pushed mulga for them for 8 months, but saved only 1,640 head. According to Mr Lloyd, they could not sell those sheep as they never recovered from the effects of eating only mulga.
In Mr Lloyd’s view, the country will not run stock year in year out. The family purchased it for relief country to save their sheep and have only used it infrequently for such purposes. He disagrees with the Department’s carrying capacity of 1 sheep to 6 hectares or 1,853 head. He does not think it would be possible to run sheep there on a full time basis. In Mr Lloyd’s opinion, it is not cattle country either. They tried to run a few head of cattle on the property but they did not thrive.
Mr Lloyd was of the opinion that they would lose money on all stock they put on the property. He considered it better to put that money into drought feed. It would not be feasible to run stock on the property on a full time basis, he contended, because it would be necessary to break mulga down with a bulldozer three days per week. In addition to that cost, under the Vegetation Management legislation this could only be done if permits were granted. In any case, he said, the meat from sheep that lived on mulga was tainted and meatworks were not interested in them. The wool from their drought stricken sheep that survived after being at “Woomerlang” was inferior in quality.
When asked why they kept the property, Mr Lloyd said they had tried to sell it, listing it with an agent, but there was no interest, not even from their neighbours. In his opinion, it was just too far away for anyone to be interested and the neighbours were struggling themselves and would not want more poor mulga country.
Evidence on behalf of the respondent was given by Mr L Brennan, a registered valuer. He explained that he valued the property as at 1 October 2005 at $21,500. However, before this hearing he had inspected the property and had revised his opinion, leading evidence at the hearing to an unimproved value of $31,500, based on direct comparison with a number of sales.
Mr Brennan’s report gives an indication of the remoteness of the subject property, stating that it is situated approximately 220 kilometres north-west of Charleville, 127 kilometres north of Quilpie and 175 kilometres south-west of Blackall. Although the property is situated inside the dingo barrier fence (it forms the eastern boundary), he concedes that dingoes are still a major problem.
Mr Brennan classified the property as follows:
8,119 hectares (73%) mulga lands with scattered poplar box and dense undergrowth in areas;
3,000 hectares (27%) rough stony bendee ridges.
There was an issue about the differences in description of country by Mr Lloyd and Mr Brennan. In my view however, there is little between them, except that Mr Brennan has not separated the softer mulga country from the hard mulga lands. In his opinion, the carrying capacity of the property is 1 dry sheep to 6 hectares, or 1,853 head, which Mr Lloyd disputes.
Although Mr Brennan accepted everything that Mr Lloyd said about the property, he disagreed that it could not run sheep on a permanent basis. He said that it was little different to other hard mulga properties in the area, which were successfully running stock.
Mr Brennan explained that he had originally valued the property at $21,500 on the basis of the historical records in the Department, as is the respondent’s practice in making annual valuations. However, when the owners appealed against the valuation, he carried out an inspection in September 2007 and considered that the valuation should be altered by direct comparison with the sales which he had included in his report.
However, I formed the view that none of the sales was directly comparable with the subject land. Some of them were just too far away, others were of different country, others were much larger. Only two sales “Bulls Gully” and “Milo” were in the vicinity of the subject land. However, “Bulls Gully”, although roughly the same size, has much superior country as it has 25% alluvial plains and frontage to the Bulloo River.
Mr Brennan analysed that sale to show $6.61 per hectare and applied an unimproved value of $5.64 per hectare to that property. In my view, it is considerably superior to the subject land. It is not as remotely situated, has superior country and has access to natural water. Considerably less than $5.64 per hectare must be applied to the subject land in relation to “Bulls Gully”.
The only other sale in the vicinity is the 116,000 hectare property “Milo”, which sold in June 2004. Mr Brennan analysed that sale to show $6.28 per hectare and applied $5.34 to that property. “Milo” is a much larger property and has frontage to the Bulloo River. It also includes channels and alluvial plain country. In my view, it is simply not comparable to the subject land.
I have come to the conclusion that none of the sales relied upon by Mr Brennan are of any assistance in supporting his contended value of $2.83 per hectare, or $31,500.00 for the subject land. “Woomerlang” is an entirely mulga property, it has no frontage country, or any mixture of country. In this regard, I accept the evidence of Mr Lloyd that a mixture of country is essential, as mulga alone is not sufficient.
With no sales to rely on, Mr Brennan referred to the relativity applied to other properties in the area. After considering the details of the various properties, in my view, only the property known as “Gilmore” to the north of the subject land provides any useful comparison. However, “Gilmore” is a larger property of 74,333 hectares and has some Bulloo River channels and flats. It also has large areas of hard mulga country and essentially useless rocky broken ridges, hills and top rock. I accept Mr Brennan’s opinion that “Gilmore” is inferior to “Woomerlang”.
Before his recent revision of the valuation, Mr Brennan had applied a value of $21,500, or $1.93 per hectare. Included in Mr Brennan’s report was a copy of an action sheet which described the action which was taken following the objection to the valuation by the owners. On that sheet Mr Brennan made the following comment:
“Relativity checked and correct. The subject is valued at $1.93/ha or $0.78/Ac and in an overview in the shire would be the lowest valued property.”
I accept the evidence given by Mr Lloyd about his experience in attempting to run stock on “Woomerlang”. However, he was bringing stock from better country onto hard mulga country and there were severe losses. It may be different for stock which were born and bred in mulga country. It may be possible to run a small number of such stock on that land.
However, I accept that the property is remote, it is a property without a mixture of country and would not be an attractive proposition, even to a neighbour, if it was in an unimproved state, as must be assumed under the Act. On the other hand, I accept Mr Brennan’s view that it may have a limited value to a person who wanted to hold an area of remote rural country. Although there was no evidence of this, it is not impossible to imagine that someone in that position would pay $21,500 for the property.
I do not accept that there is any basis for Mr Brennan’s revised figure of $31,500. All the sales are in one way or another not comparable. In the circumstances, the only basis of valuation is by comparison with the values applied to other land. I accept the subject land is overall on a per hectare basis inferior to “Gilmore”. On that basis, I have come to the conclusion that Mr Brennan’s original valuation of $21,500 is not unreasonable. The provisions of s. 33 of the Act require that the respondent’s valuation is presumed to be correct until proved otherwise. Neither of the witnesses has been able to do so. The appeal must be dismissed.
Order
The appeal is dismissed. The unimproved value of the subject land is affirmed at Twenty-one Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($21,500).
JJ TRICKETT
PRESIDENT OF THE LAND COURT
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