Terms & Conditions

[Mike Hughes]

There have been many discussions on this over the years on Rightsnet. The most recent being December 2022 to which someone called HBinfopeter 🙂 contributed the point above and Paul Stockton noted the issue with the suggestion.

In reality the Jacobs decision has unique circumstances which likely render it obiter and that’s the approach I’ve seen from tribunals in the years since then. Indeed I have had a tribunal where the judge described the attempt to use the Jacobs decision as “taking the mickey” given that the tribunal considered the suggested market as wholly unfamiliar to the appellant; likely to introduce both significant delays and cost and unlikely to produce a higher valuation.

To test this post 2018 I encouraged a couple of appellants to pursue the option. In both instances the valuation came back below both that suggested by DWP and the LA and actually lower than I had suggested in one case.

The general tribunal perspective remains that it’s willing seller to willing buyer and suggesting other markets who might have something of value to say on the matter has never yet produced a positive outcome for DWP or a LA or indeed a sympathetic ear from a tribunal who largely see it as something not of this world.

I also have zero recall of anyone coming back on Rightsnet and saying “well that failed and the property was valued at greater than £16,000