The Appraiser V. Nigerian Railway Corporation (1964)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

BAIRAMIAN JSC

This appeal from the High Court of Lagos relates to the mode of valuing the dwelling-houses in the three Railway compounds on the mainland of Lagos-Iddo. Apapa and Ebute Metta-under the Assessment Act (cap. 15 in the 1958 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria and Lagos. vol. I, p. 110). The Appraiser submits that each house should be valued separately as a tenement on its own, the Corporation that all the houses in one compound should be valued en bloc as one tenement. The latter view was accepted in the High Court with its implications. hence this appeal by the Appraiser.’Tenement’ is the unit of valuation in the Act, which defines it thus in section 2:

‘tenement’ means any land with or without buildings which is held or occupied as a distinct or separate holding or tenancy, or any wharf or pier in the waters of Nigeria.

‘Tenements used as dwelling-houses’ are excepted from the mode laid down for assessing the tenements occupied by the Railway Corporation (and some other bodies) in the Assessment and Rating (Public Utility Corporations) Ordinance (cap. 16, the 1958 Laws,

All overseas officers live in houses in the Railway compounds, each in what is a self-contained dwelling-house; it is part of their conditions of service that they should be provided with living quarters; but they have to pay rent, which is reckoned at so much per annum as a percentage on salary but not exceeding £ 150. The houses are allocated by the Corporation, but while in occupation an employee has all the privileges of any ordinary tenant. He must, however, vacate his house when he ceases to be in the Corporations employ, or goes on transfer or on leave.

The judgement under appeal has this note of argument:

‘Mr David, for the appraiser, contends that each dwelling-house is a tenement within the meaning of the Assessment Ordinance. He argues that there is a letting of each dwelling-house as a separate tenancy, because each dwelling is exclusively occupied by an employee with his family on payment of rent; because every occupier has the full use and enjoyment of the dwelling-house he occupies, and because there is no evidence of the control which it is alleged the Corporation exercises over the dwellings and their occupancy.

For the Corporation, Mr Atilade submits that the employees of the Corporation occupy the dwelling houses by virtue of their employment and in connection with their duties and not as tenants, and that the Corporation exercises such control over the houses and their occupation as to make the occupation by its employees its own. He contends that, in these circumstances, and having regard to the fact that all the buildings are within a well-defined area, each estate, and not each dwelling, is a tenement.’

The judgement goes on to say that the question is whether the employees occupy as tenants or whether in law their occupation is that of the Corporation, and that in the latter event whether there is one or several occupations. The judgement states that of the four ingredients of rateable occupation adopted in John Laing & Son Ltd., v. Kingswood Assessment Area Assessment Committee [1949] 1 K.B. 344, at 350 and 357-(1) actual occupation, which (2) must be exclusive for the particular purposes of the possessor, is (3) of some value or benefit to the possessor, and (4) is not for too transient a period-it is only the second that is in dispute; that occupation is not exclusive when it is subject to control and regulation by others, or where a servant is required to live in the house in order the better to do his work, in which case the occupation is in the employer: Reed v. Cottermole [19371 I K.B. (C.A.) 613.

After stating the facts given above before the excerpt of argument, the judgement goes on as follows:

‘The dwelling-houses are laid out and managed as a large housing estate with roads and other usual amenities maintained by the Corporation at its own expense. The object of the Corporation in so housing its employees is to ensure the efficient operation of the railway and the proper discharge of their duties by the employees. The employees, who comprise technicians of all sorts, must be readily available in case of emergency, and are, for that reason, housed together close to the railway. It is said also that control over, the ‘compound’ is exercised, and the cost of its upkeep and maintenance borne by the Corporation, but there is no detailed evidence of the extent of the control apart from what has been already stated.

The reasonable inferences to be drawn from the facts are that the employees are not tenants but merely licensees-they have a service occupation and that their occupation is that of their employer, the Corporation. Another reasonable inference is that the occupation of the Corporation is one and not divisible into as many dwelling-houses as there are, because the estate is managed as a single unit or holding.’

The estate meant is no doubt the one at Ebute Metta, which is about 550 acres in area and is very much the largest of the three. In effect all the dwelling-houses in it-probably more than one hundred-are one tenement. That result is contrary to the express language of section 3 of cap. 16, the Assessment and Rating (Public Utility Corporations) Ordinance, which provides that-

‘With effect from the 1st day of April, 1956, assessment in pursuance of the principal Ordinance [namely the Assessment Ordinance, cap. 15] in respect of tenements occupied by a public utility corporation, other than tenements used as dwelling-houses, shall be of the depreciated capital value of such tenements assessed as provided for in section 4 of this Ordinance.’