A valuation nightmare...

This is the saga of a capital gains tax matter which spanned over 13 years from January 1990 until 25 July 2003 when the Inland Revenue finally abandoned all further action. In the meantime our client P A Dunford had to endure a multiplicity of what he considered to be devious and unprincipled tactics by the local Valuation Office culminating in a bizarre hearing before the Lands Tribunal. It was only afterwards with the intervention of our client’s Member of Parliament Mr Nigel Waterson and the subsequent report from the Parliamentary Ombudsman that good sense and sanity surfaced. Even then it was some time before the Revenue finally gave up.

Now follows a brief history of events.

Setting the scene

Our client owned two adjacent mid-Victorian properties in the centre of a city on the south coast which had recent to the valuation date...