I wasn't sure where to put this but here seems good enough.

Properties abroad.

We've succesfully argued that a property in Spain with a sitting tenant should be disregarded as capital as its a future interest.

It came about as the customer explained that they were unable to end the tenancy and the tenancy was unlikely to end for a number of years due to the way that property/rental law works in Spain.

I did some research and it seems that there is a problem in Spain as 'traditional' tenancy agreements have a clause that it is up to the tenant to extend the tenancy year on year for up to 8 years. Therefore an 'irrevocable licence.'

This meant in our customers case that although she was in a negative equity position and out of pocket as the rent charged did not cover her expenditure she was trapped in debt by her tenant.

I'm sure this sort of thing will become more common in the future so it may not be a one off.

As far as I can see it would be the usual type of valuation.

What would a willing buyer, in this country, pay for it, in its current circumstances.

Then deduct 10%.

I'm not sure that the 'future interest' is anything other than a red herring. It may just be that there is negligible, or negative, value now because of negative equity.

I was using the commentary from CIS/635/1994 plus a bit of common sense.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was that the customer could not sell her house.

The customer was basically at her tenants mercy and could not sell as a 'freehold' until the tenant decided to move on or five or eight years had passed (it gets complicated.)

I'm not looking for any answers as the matter has been resolved in the customers favour.

I just thought I would flag up the idea of foreign property and not assuming anything about landlord and tenant law in another country. We did this initially, Shorthold or periodic tenancies are not universal.

The result in this case was from overpayment to underpayment.

I had something similar a few years ago with a claimant who owned croft land in Scotland. Sitting tenant, paying a peppercorn rent, and my client had no prospect of obtaining possession unless the crofter chose to move out and couldn't raise the rent to anything realistic.

DWP were assuming it had quite a high value, since on the face of it the property and land would have made a very nice holiday home. Dealt with it by getting it valued, and the valuation was a few hundred quid, not the thousands that DWP had assumed (and I'd expected), simply because it was of no practical use to any potential purchaser for years to come.

Years ago I dealt with an appeal concerning DWP's valuation of a plot of agricultural land. It turned out that their valuation was obtained from the Valuation Office who told me that they had given an "informal" valuation without viewing or inspecting the property and that this was their standard practice for such requests. One wonders whether this still happens.

When the property was properly valued by an independent valuer, problems with access, drainage, soil quality and aspect meant that the value was less than the then lower capital limit.

I have just completed a case very similar to Neil's. land was valued with a lot of ifs and buts (if planning permision could be obtained....etc.) and a revaluation proved it was actually worth a small fraction of the 'official' value as there was no likelyhood of PP and the land was contaminated with asbestos.

The original valuation was nothing to do with the DWP, it was commissioned by the claimant but the DWP failed to spot that it wasn't really suitable for the purpose of deciding a benefit claim.They have, I am pleased to say, rectified it now and trhe claimant has had a substantial back payment.