Harris and Others v Minister for Finance

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 24 June 1966
• Docket Number: (1963. No. 1801 P.)
• Date: 24 June 1966
• Court: High Court

(H.C.)

Harris and Others

and

Minister for Finance

Fee farm grant - Grantee to pay "clear rent over and above all and all manner of taxes charges and impositions" - Lands exempt from rating - Rates paid by grantors on half-rent - Whether grantors entitled to be indemnified by grantee against payment of rates assessed on half-rent - Poor Relief (Ir.) Act, 1838, s. 63 -Valuation (Ir.) Act, 1852, s. 12 - Valuation (Ir.) Act, 1854, s. 2 - Cork City Management (Amendment) Act, 1941, ss. 16, 19 - State Property Act, 1954, s. 5.

Certain lands were granted by the plaintiffs' predecessors in title to the defendant's predecessor in title by a fee farm grant, dated the 1st September, 1862. The reddendum provided that the rent of £97 2s. 9d. was to be "clear rent over and above all and all manner of taxes charges and impositions whatsoever." The grantee covenanted that he "should and would well and truly pay or cause to be paid unto the grantors the said reserved yearly fee farm rent of £97 2s. 9d. in the manner thereinbefore appointed for the payment thereof over and above all taxes and deductions as aforesaid." In the year 1852 the lands were marked in the general valuation list as exempt from rating as being devoted to public purposes, and at the same time the plaintiff's predecessors in title were entered on the valuation list as the occupiers of a rateable hereditament, namely, one half of the rent reserved by the fee farm grant, i.e., £48 10s. 0d. In 1941, the said valuation was reduced to £16 3s. 4d. The plaintiffs and their predecessors in title, having paid the rates due in respect of the said valuation up to and including the year 1963-64, issued a plenary summons in which they claimed a declaration that they were entitled to be indemnified by the defendant against the payment of rates assessed and to be assessed on the half-rent They also claimed the sum of £471 5s. 1d. the amount...