Turning to the case at hand, the parties agree that the subject parcel’s assessment increased by more than 5% between March 1, 2009 and March 1, 2010. … Assessor therefore has the burden of proof.
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To support the subject parcel’s assessment, the Assessor relied primarily on (1) Kyle Cross’s appraisal, and (2) Kris Moore’s e-mail and accompanying MLS data. As explained above, however, those exhibits were both hearsay to which Ms. Fisher objected. And the Assessor did not claim that the exhibits fell within any recognized exception to the hearsay rule. The Board is therefore precluded from basing its determination solely on those exhibits.
The Assessor, however, offered scant other evidence to show the subject property’s true tax value. At best, Brian Thomas testified that the subject parcel’s assessment increased because it had previously been assigned to the wrong assessment neighborhood and has now been moved to an appropriate one. But that amounts to little more than a claim that the Assessor properly applied assessment regulations. And both the Indiana Tax Court and the Board have repeatedly rejected similar attempts by taxpayers to prove a property’s market value-in-use by strictly applying assessment regulations. See e.g., Eckerling v. Wayne Twp. Assessor, 841 N.E.2d 674, 678 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2006). The Assessor instead needed to show through the types of market-based evidence described in the Manual that the subject parcel’s assessment actually reflected its market value-in-use. See id. (pointing to the Manual in explaining what types of evidence can be used to demonstrate a property’s market value-in-use).
Because the Assessor did not offer probative non-hearsay evidence of the subject parcel’s market value-in-use, she failed to make a prima facie case that the parcel’s assessment was correct. The subject parcel’s March 1, 2010 assessment must therefore be reduced to its March 1, 2009 level of $58,300.
