Containing the Act, and so much of the Union Assessment Committee PRECEDENTS AND FORMS Of Notices of Appeal, Petitions to Enter, Appellants' and Respondents' Cases, BY EDWARD W. BEAL, M.A., Solicitor, Clerk of the Court of General Assessment Sessions, LONDON: SHAW & SONS, FETTER LANE & CRANE COURT, PREFACE. THE gross estimated Rental of the Metropolis was £34,409,585 on the 20th November, 1882, when the last Returns were published. The Rateable Value at that date was £28,393,865. These are the figures over which the Court of General Assessment Sessions has jurisdiction. The area of the Metropolis, as defined by the Act, embraces the whole of the City of London, and extends from Highgate on the north to Tooting and Penge on the south. On the east, it stretches to Woolwich and Plumstead, and on the west, to Hammersmith and Roehampton. This is the local jurisdiction of the Court. The property comprised in the Metropolis is of course of the most varied description. After the Quinquennial Valuation of 1880, the appeals to the Assessment Sessions numbered 155. They included railways-lines, stations, hotels, goods depôts-water, gas, and tramway companies, docks, warehouses, factories, breweries, mansions let out in flats or chambers, clubs, and colleges. It has been the duty of the Court to consider various questions relating to totals; to investigate the nature of the tolls taken in Covent Garden Market; to lay down principles for the rating of Board schools; and to discuss the proper mode of assessing hospitals. In short, whether in respect of value, or variety, or intricacy of subject, the Assessment Sessions is without doubt the most important tribunal of its kind within the kingdom. The practice of the Court has been built up by degrees, and has now reached a stage which seems to call for a systematic exposition. This little book aims at supplying that want. It is hoped that the details which it contains may save practitioners the trouble of making the numberless inquiries which they now find necessary at every stage of an appeal. The appended information is, I trust, accurate and complete. I take this opportunity of thanking the officials who have been good enough to correct the particulars falling within their several departments. The book does not profess to deal with law, except so far as law is involved in practice; and as to this, I speak with diffidence, relying chiefly on the experience I have been able to gather from the varied practice of the Quarter Sessions for Middlesex. The forms and precedents are based upon cases which have come before the Court. This appeared to me to be better than inventing an imaginary set of facts and circumstances. I have, however, redrawn or altered, where improvement seemed to me possible, the proceedings actually used. It will be noticed that the precedents form in some instances a complete set of proceedings from the notice of appeal to the final order of the Court. SESSIONS HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C., January, 1883. E. W. B. |