The Trust relies primarily on the
fact that it bought the subject property for $15,750 on April 4, 2006. A
property’s sale price can be compelling evidence of its market value-in-use
where the sale was an arm’s-length transaction between typically motivated parties
and, as was the case here, the property was exposed to the market for a reasonable
time. The Assessor, however, challenged the sale by pointing to Mr. Kollar’s
testimony (1) that the Trust bought the property from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage
Corporation (“Freddie Mac”) after Freddie Mac had acquired the property through
foreclosure, and (2) that the market was not a “foreclosure market.” The Assessor
apparently takes the position that when an entity acquires a property through foreclosure,
the price for which the entity re-sells the property necessarily fails to qualify
as an indicator of the property’s market value-in-use unless
foreclosure-related sales constitute the typical market in the area. The Board
disagrees. Instead, the key is what generally accepted appraisal practices
require in the context of the particular sale. And the Assessor shed no light
on that question.
d) The Assessor also claims that
the sale was too far removed from the relevant valuation dates to be probative
of the subject property’s true tax value for the years under appeal. Again, the
Board disagrees. The sale occurred less than eight months before the January 1,
2007 valuation date that applies to 2008 assessments. While the sale is further
removed from the January 1, 2008 valuation date that applies to 2009 assessments,
the Assessor herself did not change the property’s assessment between the 2007
and 2009 assessment years. Although not compelling, that fact is sufficient to
at least prima facie relate the sale price to the property’s value as of
January 1, 2009. And the Assessor offered nothing to dispute that relationship.
