Land and Environment Court of New South Wales CITATION : Harrison v Valuer General [2010] NSWLEC 1253 APPLICANT C Harrison PARTIES : RESPONDENT Valuer General FILE NUMBER(S) : 30542 of 2010 CORAM: Moore SC KEY ISSUES: VALUATION OF LAND :- LEGISLATION CITED: Valuation of Land Act 1916 DATES OF HEARING: 15 September 2010 EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE : 15 September 2010 APPLICANT In person LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES: RESPONDENT Ms C Anthoney, solicitor Crown Solicitor's Office JUDGMENT: THE LAND AND ENVIRONMENT COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES MOORE SC 15 September 2010 10/30542 Harrison v Valuer General JUDGMENT This decision was given as an extemporaneous decision. It has been revised and edited prior to publication. 1 SENIOR COMMISSIONER: This appeal is pursuant to the Valuation of Land Act 1916 (the Act). It concerns the valuation, as at the base date 1 July 2009, of 59 Dickson Street, Bronte. During the course of this morning's site inspection and initial discussions, the parties were not able to reach agreement pursuant to s 34(3) of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979 and, as a consequence, the parties have agreed to me hearing and determining the objection to the statutory valuation. The statutory valuation of 59 Dickson Street, at the base state, was $1,090,000. 2 As part of the process this morning, I have inspected a number of other sites that have been adopted by Mr. Hill, expert valuer for the Valuer General, as comparable sales. Those sites comprised 24 Dickson Street, 23 Brown Street and 6 Carter Street in Bronte and 83 St Thomas Street at Clovelly. During the course of the inspection of each of those comparable sales, Mr. Hill explained the reasons why he had adopted each of those sales and the adjustments that he had made to render each of those land sales comparable, on a dollar per square metre rate, with the present site. The site has an area of 436.3 m² and the other sites that were inspected ranged between approximately 240 m² and 480 m². 3 Of the comparable sales relied upon by Mr. Hill, I asked him specific questions with respect to two of them. The first, the comparable sale in Brown Street, was a site that formerly contained a small residential apartment block that has been demolished; the site subdivided for a dual occupancy; and the dual occupancy being constructed. Although Mr. Hill considered that there might be a purchaser in the same market buying that site as would the hypothetical purchaser for the site that is the subject of valuation appeal, I am not satisfied that that is appropriate. As I put to him during the course of his evidence, I consider that it is more likely that the Brown Street site would be developer purchased by a commercial developer rather than by an owner occupier as was more likely to be the case with each of the other sites. I am therefore not satisfied that the Brown Street site, which shows an analysed land value per square metre across the total area of the site significantly higher than that for the present site, should be used for the purposes of the sales comparison analysis. 4 A similar position applies with respect to the St Thomas Street site in Clovelly. I am not persuaded that this site is likely to be sufficiently in the same or a similar market to the market for the two analysed sales in Dickson Street and Carter Street or a hypothetical sale and purchase pursuant to s 6A(1) of the Act for the site that is the subject of the appeal. 5 I have therefore concluded that I should discard the analysis for those two sites in the course of my consideration of these sales analyses. 6 However, taking the sale at 24 Dickson Street and the sale at 6 Carter Street, Mr. Hill has applied a series of percentage adjustment to reflect the differences between the site and those comparable sales. They are adjustments for size; location; rear lane access; a specific topographic analysis as to whether the site is level not; whether there are views; and the nature of the zoning. No adjustment is necessary for the Dickson and Carter Street zonings as they are both in the 2(a) zoned area as the site. 7 Mr. Hill considers, as a consequence of the analysed differences, the 24 Dickson Street site is subject to a 30% downward adjustment from the base land value of $3572 per square metre giving an analysed comparable land value of $2500 per square metre. For 6 Carter Street, his base land value of $3482, after an adjustment downward of 17.5%, comes to $2873 per square metre. 8 Sister Harrison, who has lodged this objection, has pointed to the differences in views; topography; access to transport and the like as matters that she considers reflect on the disadvantages of her property compared to the Dickson and Carter Street sales and warrant a lower valuation. 9 I accept her submissions that they are factors to be taken into account but I am satisfied that Mr. Hill has done so in his sales analysis and that, as a consequence, I should accept his calculations. 10 Mr. Hill's analysed land values for 24 Dickson Street and 6 Carter Street, when added together and averaged, yield a resultant analysed land value of $2696.50 per square metre – this being modestly in excess of the analysed land value that is pressed for 59 Dickson Street of $2548 per square metre. 11 I thus have no evidence that would discharge the onus that falls on the applicant, pursuant to s 40 (2) of the Act, to displace Mr. Hill's expert valuation assessment which I consider has been undertaken, on the two sales I have been prepared to adopt for the purposes of these proceedings, as a proper and impartial basis for the comparison required for these proceedings. 12 The consequence of all the foregoing is that I accept that the applicant has not demonstrated why the statutory valuation should be to disturbed. The orders of the Court, therefore, are: 1. The appeal is dismissed; 2. The statutory valuation of the Valuer General for 59 Dickson Street, Bronte, as at the base date of 1 July 2009 is confirmed; and 3. The exhibits are retained. Tim Moore Senior Commissioner DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated.