Woolway (Appellant) v Mazars (Respondent)

In Woolway (Appellant) v Mazars (Respondent), the Supreme Court was called upon to decide whether two floors of an office block, occupied by the same tenant but physically separate, should be treated as a single hereditament for the purposes of non-domestic rating. The case arose from an appeal by the Valuation Officer against a decision of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) that the second and sixth floors of Tower Bridge House, which were occupied by the firm of Mazars, constituted a single hereditament. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, holding that the two floors should be treated as separate hereditaments. The court held that the identification of a hereditament for rating purposes should be guided by the principle that a hereditament is a self-contained piece of property. The court rejected the idea that functional integration of separate premises could override the geographical test, emphasising that rates are a tax on property and not on the business of the occupier. The court noted that while exceptional circumstances might justify treating separate premises as a single hereditament, the mere fact that they were occupied by the same tenant was not sufficient. The decision clarified the law on the identification of hereditaments for rating purposes, rejecting the approach taken in the earlier Court of Appeal decision in Gilbert v S Hickinbottom and Sons Ltd. The Supreme Court's judgment provided a principled approach to the issue, emphasising the importance of a clear and practical test that could be uniformly applied.