Ms. Roth offered USPAP-compliant
appraisal reports prepared by two different appraisers. All four reports valued
Ms. Roth’s property at less than its 2011 assessment. Two of the appraisals
bracketed the March 1, 2011 valuation date—Mr. Benz’s “Appraisal Update and/or
Completion Report” was less than nine months before the valuation date and Mr.
McClelland’s report was approximately ten months after the date. Both
appraisers valued the property at $600,000. Those appraisals therefore tend to
show that the property was assessed for more than its true tax value.
The Assessor challenged the
appraisers’ opinions on grounds that some of their comparable sales were from
outside the Village. Of course, others were located in the Village. And Mr.
McClelland expressly accounted for premiums associated with Village properties
through location adjustments to his comparable properties’ sale prices. The
Board is therefore not persuaded by the Assessor’s challenge to the appraisals.
The Assessor’s witness, Ms.
Lewis, also did her own comparative market analysis. Although Ms. Lewis is an
appraiser, there is nothing to indicate that her analysis complies with USPAP.
Indeed, Ms. Lewis did not even testify about her analysis. The Assessor,
however, did offer a spreadsheet that appears to summarize Ms. Lewis’s
analysis. And that spreadsheet compares six homes to Ms. Roth’s home along
various lines. But other than expressing each sale price as a function of price
per square foot, Ms. Lewis did nothing to explain how any relevant differences
between her comparable properties and Ms. Roth’s property affected their
relative values. The Board therefore gives Ms. Lewis’s analysis little or no
weight. Long v. Wayne Twp. Assessor, 821 N.E.2d 466, 471 (Ind. Tax Ct.
2005) (finding that taxpayers’ sales data lacked probative value where they
failed to explain how the properties’ relevant characteristics compared to
their property or how any differences affected the properties’ values).
Finally, the Assessor offered a
letter from Ms. Roth indicating that her property’s total cost—including buying
the land and building the home—was $640,500. As explained above, the
arm’s-length sale price for a parcel of land can be probative of its value. The
same is true for the actual cost to build improvements. Thus, Ms. Roth’s letter
is at least some evidence that the property was worth $640,500. But the letter
offers no details about when Ms. Roth negotiated the land price or construction
costs with her builder, or specifically what was included in those costs. And
Mr. Benz indicated that the market had softened since Ms. Roth originally
sought to finance her purchase of the property. Under those circumstances, the
Board finds the appraisals more persuasive than Ms. Roth’s letter.
