Why might a person not appear in a valuation roll at an address he or she was resident at?

There are five main reasons why someone may not appear in a valuation roll.

 

Not the householder or owner

Remember that the purpose of a valuation roll was not to record the names of all residents at a property, but to record merely those liable for local rates: the owner and – if appropriate – the tenant. A person may have been resident at a property but not mentioned in a valuation roll because he or she was not the owner of the property or the tenant. For example, a married couple might have been resident but if the husband or wife was the tenant, the other spouse will not be named. If the person concerned was a subtenant he or she would not be mentioned.

Unofficial house swap

Sometimes the tenants of two houses swap houses informally, between themselves, without changing the lease. This happened particularly between tenants of council houses. Tenants might swap to be nearer family or because a bigger or smaller house is required. If this is done without formal permission from the owner of the property, the valuation roll will not be changed to reflect the informal arrangement.

Administrative time lag

Because valuation rolls were almost always published once per year, they do not take into account changes until the following year. In general county and burgh surveyors surveyed properties in the Autumn and published the roll based on this survey the following Whitsun (15 May). So, for example, a roll published on 15 May 1925 contains information about properties gathered in the Autumn of 1924. A new tenant might move into the property in December 1924, but not appear in the valuation roll until May 1926.

Clerical Error

As with any official record, the possibility of clerical error cannot be ruled out. An error could be made at the point of survey, or while the roll was prepared for printing, or in the printing process.

False information

Owners or occupiers might give false information at the point of survey, deliberately (for example to avoid taxation) or accidentally (for example, a husband or wife giving his or her name as tenant, when, strictly speaking the tenant was the other spouse).