Carecall Limited v Karen Giles (VO)

This is an appeal by the ratepayer Carecall Limited from the decision of the Valuation Tribunal for England to dismiss its appeal from the Valuation Officer’s decision about the rateable value of the property because it was made several months out of time.

The appeal has been decided under the Tribunal’s written representations procedure. The appellant has been represented by one of its directors, Mr Shiv Ghai; the Valuation Officer has chosen not to take part in the appeal.

Appeals from the VTE are brought as of right, with no permission threshold, and usually proceed by way of re-hearing. However, the VTE’s decision to dismiss the appeal was a case management decision. Appeals against such decisions are conducted by way of review (see paragraphs 63 and following of Simpsons Malt and others v Jones (VO) and others [2017] UKUT 460 (LC), and rule 12 of the Tribunal’s Practice Directions). The appeal can succeed only if the VTE’s decision was not a proper exercise of its discretion.

The “check, challenge, appeal” procedure introduced in 2017 in relation to non-domestic rating is set out in the Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009/2268. The “challenge” part of the procedure is found in regulations 5 to 9, while regulations 10 to 13 relate to the Valuation Officer’s response to a challenge. Regulation 13A makes provision for an appeal to the VTE from the VO’s response. Regulation 13B says this:

“(1)

A proposer may only make an appeal following a decision of the VO under regulation 13 within the period of 4 months beginning with the date of the decision notice under that regulation.”

Regulation 6(3)(a) of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009/2269 gives the VTE a discretion to extend or shorten the time for complying with any regulation or direction.

The appellant is in the business of running care homes for the elderly. On 19 June 2025 the valuation officer served on the appellant a decision under regulation 13 in relation to 124 Carholme Road, Lincoln, following a Challenge seeking the deletion of the property from the valuation list with effect from 1 April 2023. The period of 4 months from that decision ended on 19 October 2025. The appellant’s appeal to the VTE was submitted on 7 June 2026, two hundred and thirty-one days late.

The appellant was therefore invited to provide its reasons for the delay. In its decision of 2 July 2026 the VTE set out the reasons given by its director, Mr Shiv Ghai. He explained that on receipt of the decision the company had instructed its rating agent, Appeal Business Rates, to lodge an appeal. It did not do so. Mr Ghai said that that came to light only after the time limit expired. From September 2025 onwards Mr Ghai was affected by serious health issues which prevented him from monitoring the agent’s progress or making the appeal himself. He told the VTE that once he was sufficiently recovered and became aware of the problem he took steps to make the appeal without further delay.

In response to a further enquiry from the VTE Mr Ghai confirmed that his last contact with Appeal Business Rates was on 24 September 2025. He pointed out that he was 79 years old and actively running the company’s care home business. He repeated that he believed that the agent had submitted the appeal in time and only discovered later that it had not done so.

The VTE then went carefully through the three-stage approach in Denton & Ors v TH White Ltd & Ors [2014] EWCA Civ 906. It decided that the delay was significant; that it arose because an agent had been engaged in good faith to submit the appeal but had failed to do so, and Mr Ghai’s health problems had prevented him from attending to it himself. As to the third stage, the VTE said this:

“At the third stage, I am required to consider all of the circumstances in order to enable the Tribunal to deal justly with the appeal. In particular, I must place significant emphasis upon the need for litigation to be conducted efficiently and at proportionate cost in addition to the need to enforce compliance with rules, directions and orders. Furthermore, in Denton the Court of Appeal warned against an unduly draconian approach to relief and emphasised that compliance was not to be regarded as an end itself; rules and rule compliance are the handmaids not the mistresses of justice and could never be allowed to assume a greater importance than doing justice itself.

14.

I noted that Mr Ghai had returned to work, albeit in a reduced capacity, after a period of ill health aware of the fact an appeal still had not been submitted. The submission of an appeal is not considered to be a particularly onerous task and I conclude that Mr Ghai could have submitted an appeal an appeal much earlier than he did on 7 June 2026.

15.

I also note that Carecall Limited has a second director, Rishi Ghai, (appointed in November 2010) who has joint responsibility for the management of the company and I find it reasonable to conclude that he was able to submit an appeal on behalf of the company at any time after 24 September 2025 to ensure a timely submission by the deadline of 19 October 2025 and certainly much earlier than 7 June 2026.

16.

Furthermore, I am also mindful that this appeal appears to have no reasonable prospect of success. Mr Ghai is seeking the deletion of the subject property from the rating list but a hereditament appears to remain in existence and there is no evidence of any overt act to commence demolition work. Therefore, it must be valued rebus sic stantibus (as it stands) and at the material day of 1 April 2023 the property continued to exist as a hereditament.

17.

In view of the foregoing, I find that I have not been provided with any compelling reasons to persuade me to exercise my discretion and authorise the acceptance of this exceptionally late appeal. 18. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed.”

Carecall Limited appeals against that conclusion.

In the grounds of appeal Mr Ghai repeated the explanation he gave to the VTE. He said that while he believed that the agent was dealing with the appeal, his health deteriorated significantly. He suffered approximately eight months of overlapping medical problems, including emergency hospital treatment, investigations and consultant appointments. He said: “Although I continued to carry out the essential financial responsibilities needed to keep our two care homes operating, I did not have the physical or mental capacity to pursue legal and administrative matters that required sustained attention.” Once he discovered the problem, he decided not to instruct another firm so as not to incur further professional costs. Instead, he prepared the appeal himself, which took considerably longer than it would have taken a professional adviser because he was still recovering from illness.

At the Tribunal’s request Mr Ghai produced the medical evidence that he supplied to the VTE. I need not set it out here; I entirely accept that Mr Ghai was not able to submit the appeal earlier that he did because of his health.

In my judgment that cannot excuse the delay. Mr Ghai has not explained why the other director, his son, could not deal with the appeal. He has not explained why, in light of his age, he does not have arrangements in place for the company to be managed if he is unable to do so. That is particularly important if he is responsible for the financial management that keeps the care homes operating; for that reason alone the failure to have emergency arrangements in place is inexplicable. Nor has Mr Ghai explained why not instructing alternative agents was a sensible decision in light of his ill-health. He has also produced his correspondence with the agent, which demonstrates that he was aware that the appeal had not been submitted by late September 2025; the four-month deadline could easily have been met if another professional firm had been appointed at that point.

All these facts were made known to the VTE. In the circumstances it is impossible to say that the VTE erred in dismissing the appeal; indeed, its decision was entirely appropriate because no good reason for the delay has been supplied. In light of that, the appeal to the Upper Tribunal fails.