On 19 December 2008 the Land Appeal Court upheld an appeal against the land value assessed in October 2002 for Pacific Fair Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast.
This was an important industry test case and the first to be decided by the Court following amendments to the Valuation of Land Act in March 2008.
The Court virtually halved the $90 million unimproved land value assessed by the Department of Natural Resources and Water, as at 1 October 2002, and found the correct value to be $47.49 million.
It was also critical of the Government’s amendments to the Act as an attack on individual taxpayers and found that, notwithstanding the amendments, unimproved value relates to the potential to put land to its highest and best use not the realisation of that potential.
The Department has since lodged an appeal against the decision.
http://www.landcourt.qld.gov.au/decisions/PDF/LAC2007-0033.pdf
