Both parties agreed the $140,100 assessment for 2011 increased by more than 5% from the 2010 assessor’s assessment ($120,500). Therefore, the Respondent had the burden of proving the 2011 assessment is correct.
Prior to 2011, the subject property had an agricultural land classification, but the 2011 assessment changed the classification to residential. According to the Respondent, all the land in the area got this same reclassification. The evidence related to the Brown, Gasser, Bodkin, and Goretcki properties seems to show other instances of a change to residential classification. The purported consistency, however, proves nothing without a meaningful, factual analysis of how the properties are actually used. The Respondent also relied on the fact that the Petitioners filed for an initial Forest Management review on September 12, 2011, which was after the assessment date. The Respondent admitted that document would apply to show agricultural use for the 2012 assessment. Furthermore, the Respondent did not dispute the testimony about how a selective harvest of trees actually took place in 2012—a fact that clearly indicates those same trees would have been growing in 2011 because, unlike most other agricultural crops, trees take several years to grow to a marketable size. The Respondent offered no evidence that the property was not devoted to the agricultural use. Therefore, the Respondent failed to prove changing the land classification from agricultural to residential was correct.
The Respondent also failed to prove the assessed value of $140,100 is correct.
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An appraisal, completed in conformance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, often can be the best indication of value. O’Donnell, 854 N.E.2d at 94; Kooshtard Property VI, LLC v. White River Twp. Assessor, 836 N.E.2d 501, 506 n. 6 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2005). The Respondent introduced an appraisal valuing the subject property at $125,000 as of September 20, 2011. Resp’t Ex. 20. Among other things, the appraisal indicates it was performed by an Indiana Certified Residential Appraiser and it contains a certification that it was performed “in accordance with the requirements of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice….” The appraisal date is approximately six months after the valuation date, March 1, 2011, and all three of the comparable sales identified in the appraisal occurred between September 2010 and January 2011. This timing would be sufficiently close for the appraisal to be relevant. But in this case neither side argued in favor of the value indicated by the appraisal.
The Respondent argued that the appraised value is not reliable evidence. The Respondent attacked the validity of the appraisal’s conclusion about the value of the subject property because purportedly the appraiser’s adjustment of each comparable sale by $900 per acre for the difference in land size was too low, and consequently, the appraised value was too low. In making this argument against the appraisal, the Respondent relied on a letter from John Dickerson, who apparently is a local appraiser. Resp’t Ex. 21. The letter is generic, making no reference to the subject property. There is no indication that Mr. Dickerson actually appraised the subject property and he did not testify at this hearing. The letter itself indicates it is merely speculation:
In response to your inquiry, I am happy to discuss with you how I most likely might make appraisal adjustments for significant market value differences of smaller home-sites’ land sizes pertaining to comparable residential properties sales being compared to a subject residential property with a 2-20 acre home-site being appraised situated in Lexington Township of Scott County, IN.
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I likely might justify making land size differences adjustments to the comparables at a rate between $1,000 and $2,000 per acre according to my judgment of the potential utility level of the excess land being compared. If the excess land were to be considered to have low utility potential I likely might make adjustment of the acreage difference between $1,000 and $1,500 per acre.
In short, the Dickerson letter has no probative value. But even if it did, the adjustments in the appraisal were only slightly less than the lower end of the range suggested in the letter. The Respondent made a conclusory attempt to manipulate the appraisal by changing the adjustments to the sales comparables, but the Respondent did nothing to establish that doing so is consistent with generally accepted appraisal principles. Ultimately, this part of the Respondent’s case does nothing to help prove the market value-in-use of the subject property.
The Goretcki property sold for $187,000 and was assessed at $184,500. Although the figures for that particular property are similar, the similarity does not establish the market value-in-use of the subject property or the accuracy of its existing assessed value. The sales/assessment ratio studies for the Petitioners’ neighborhood and Lexington Township may have been within the state requirements for a proper assessment and the DLGF may have approved both ratio studies. The Respondent, however, offered no support for the premise that the assessment of the subject property is actually a correct market value-in-use simply because assessments in general are within acceptable statistical ranges for measuring the overall uniformity, equality, and accuracy of mass appraisals. See Canal Square Limited Partnership v. State Bd. of Tax Comm’rs, 694 N.E.2d 801, 808 (Ind. Tax Ct. 1998) (in order to carry its burden, the assessor must do more than merely assert that it assessed the property correctly).
In other cases where the Respondent had the burden to prove the assessment is correct and the Respondent failed to do so, the Board has ordered the assessment to be returned to the assessed value of the year before. In this case doing so reduces the assessment to $120,500 and reinstates the agricultural land classification upon which that number was based.
To the extent that the Petitioners sought an even lower assessed value, they had the burden to prove it. They did not do so. Their cost evidence for the garage and house was from 1999 and 2002. Nothing related those costs to March 1, 2011. Therefore, the construction costs were not probative. Long, 821 N.E.2d at 471.
