Excerpts of the Board's Determination follow:
Because the Whites based their
specific assessment request of $421,100 on an analysis of two other properties’
assessments, the Board turns to that evidence first. As noted above, Ind. Code § 6-1.1-15-18
allows a party to offer evidence of comparable properties’ assessments to prove
the value of a property under appeal. But
that statute does not automatically make evidence of other properties’ assessments
probative. The party offering the evidence must show both how the properties in
question compare to the property under appeal and how any relevant differences
between the properties affect their relative values. See Ind. Code §
6-1.1-15-18(c)(2) (requiring the use of generally accepted appraisal and
assessment practices to determine whether properties are comparable).
The Whites offered no such
analysis. The Whites did not even attempt to account for the myriad relevant
ways in which the subject property differed from the neighboring properties.
For example, the subject home was assessed using a substantially higher quality
grade (“A-1”) than the other two homes (“B” and “B+1,” respectively). That reflects
the Assessor’s judgment as to the homes’ relative construction quality, something
the Whites did nothing to dispute or otherwise account for. Similarly, the Whites
used price-per-square-foot as their unit of comparison. But the neighboring properties
have significantly more above-grade living area than the subject property. One need look no further than the Guidelines’
cost schedules to confirm that as a home’s size increases, the price per square
foot generally decreases. See 2002 REAL PROPERTY ASSESSMENT GUIDELINES, App. C
(incorporated by reference at 50 IAC 2.3-1-2 (2009)). Similarly, a significant
amount of the neighboring homes’ living area is contained in upper stories,
while the subject home has only one story. Once again, the Guidelines assign a
lower price per square foot for upper stories than for the first story. See
id. The assessment data for the neighboring properties therefore has little
or no probative weight.
The Board therefore turns to the
Whites’ evidence about the subject property’s listing history and eventual
sale. While a property’s advertised asking price, by itself, typically does not
show a property’s specific market value-in-use, that price may at least tend to
show the upper limit of the property’s value. That is particularly true where a
seller has unsuccessfully advertised a property for sale at a given price over an
extended period.
During the period most relevant
to the January 1, 2008 valuation date at issue in this appeal, the Whites
listed their property for sale with asking prices ranging from $599,000 to
$565,000. It was not until April 16, 2009, that they lowered their asking price
below the property’s assessment of $536,700. Even then, they only lowered the price
to $530,000. The first time that the Whites dropped their asking price significantly
below the assessment was on June 16, 2009, when they listed the property for
$500,000. Without more, that listing history does not show that the property
was worth less than its assessed value as of January 1, 2008.
Similarly, while the property
sold for only $405,000, that sale happened more than 3½ years after the January
1, 2008 valuation date. The Whites, however, offered nothing to explain how the
sale price related to the property’s market value-in-use as of that valuation
date. At most, the Whites argued that there was a “rapidly changing market in
the negative direction” during the period that the property was listed for sale.
J. White argument. But that argument supports the Assessor’s position,
not the Whites’ position. While the Whites may have shown that the subject
property was worth less than $536,700 as of the valuation dates for future
assessment years, they have not made a prima facie case
for reducing the property’s March 1, 2009 assessment.
http://www.in.gov/ibtr/files/White_43-033-09-1-5-00004.pdf
