Supplies between companies in the same VAT group are disregarded for VAT purposes by virtue of Section 43(1)(a) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 . A case that recently reached the Court of Appeal concerned whether this disregard applies if the supplying...
Bell Lax acted for Mr Goode, the claimant in this claim for nuisance.
Mr Goode owned land that abutted a golf course. Balls would often fall on his land and as a result, he claimed his land was contaminated; he was no long able to sell and hay or silage to horse owners as he ordinarily would due to the risk of the animals consuming the balls.
At first instance, this nuisance was found at law and the defendants were ordered to erect a 40 foot fence in order to prevent the nuisance from reoccurring.
The defendant appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The defendant argued that Mr Goode should have mitigated his loss by trough feeding his sheep with hay from the contaminated land. The Court of Appeal however supported Bell Lax in its assertion that Mr Goode was wholly reasonable in not doing so; the risk of ingestion was great and posed a risk to his livestock. The court did however allow the defendant’s submission that the erection of a fence was disproportionate and ruled that Mr Goode’s proper relief lay in damages.
