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Jeremy Rowan-Robinson: Professor of Land Economy.
Norman Hutchison: Lecturer in the Department of Land Economy, University of Aberdeen, Old Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors are grateful to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Education Trust for their financial support in carrying out this study.
Introduction
This article sets out to establish the purpose of compensation arising from the compulsory acquisition of commercial premises for a city centre redevelopment scheme in Scotland. The circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the premises and our assessment of the compensation settlements are discussed below. Before embarking on such a discussion, it is necessary to make some general observations about the context of the article and, in particular, about the way in which compensation for compulsory purchase is assessed.
From time to time land is required for public purposes. It may be required, for example, for road improvements, for a new school, for sewage works or, as here, for the redevelopment of an area. Often, the land will be acquired by negotiation. Sometimes, however, the public authority promoting the scheme will resort, as it did in this case, to compulsory purchase powers. This may be because of resistance from the landowner or for reasons of administrative convenience such as the need to adhere to a timetable for redevelopment or because of the number of interests to be acquired.
Compensation following the compulsory purchase of an interest in land falls to be calculated within the framework of rules set out in the Land Compensation (Scotland) Act 1963, s.12. For England and Wales the equivalent rules are set out in the Land Compensation Act 1961, s.5. The keystone of the compensation provisions is rule (2). This requires in most cases that the value of an interest in land should be assessed by reference to the amount which it would realize if sold in the open market by a willing seller.
Although in the leading Scottish case on disturbance of Venables v. Department of Agriculture for Scotland [1932] SC 573 reference is made to "all loss occasioned by his dispossession", there clearly have to be limits to a disturbance claim; otherwise the ingenious claimant can trace the consequences of dispossession through a seemingly endless series of events. There is, however, no...