The Trust relies mainly on the
fact that it bought the subject property for $6,800 on August 10, 2007. The
Assessor challenged the sale’s validity as an indicator of the property’s
market value-in-use on grounds that the Trust bought the property out of foreclosure.
It is unclear whether the Trust bought the property at a forced sale, such as a
sheriff’s sale ordered through a foreclosure action, or from an entity that
acquired the property out of foreclosure and then re-sold it. Unfortunately,
neither party offered any details about the sale. That lack of detail is
problematic. As the Board has previously held, simply pointing to the fact that
a seller acquired a property through foreclosure before re-selling it does not
automatically disqualify the resale price as an indicator of the property’s
market value-in-use. Instead, the key is what generally accepted appraisal
principles require.
d) But here, the Assessor did not
simply rest on an assertion that foreclosure-related sales can never be used to
show market value-in-use; she offered specific evidence to support the
inference that the particular transaction at issue was not a market-value sale.
As the Assessor pointed out, the property twice sold for significantly higher amounts
within the two years leading up to the Trust’s purchase. In fact, the second sale
occurred less than a month before the Trust bought the property. Again, the parties
offered no details about those sales. Nonetheless, when taken as a whole, the sales
history raises significant questions about the reliability of the August 10,
2007 sale price as a reflection of the property’s market value. Indeed, Mr.
Kollar admitted that the property was worth more than what the Trust paid for
it, albeit still less than the amount for which it was assessed. Under those
circumstances, the price that the Trust paid for the property is not probative
of its market value-in-use.
e) The same is true for Mr.
Kollar’s testimony that the property is available for sale with an asking price
$15,000 at the time of the Board’s hearing. Where a property has been marketed
in a commercially reasonable manner without selling, the seller’s asking price
may at least tend to show a ceiling on the property’s market value. Mr. Kollar,
however, did not say what steps, if any, the Trust had taken to market the property.
Mr. Kollar also failed to explain how a listing from 2013 relates to the property’s
market value-in-use as of the valuation dates that apply to the assessments under
appeal (January 1, 2007, and January 1, 2008).
