3 Keys to Appealing an Unfair Assessment

Michael Miller

This is a challenging time in the property tax world. Pandemic-era federal assistance programs have dried up, increasing communities’ appetite for tax dollars to deal with crime, homelessness, transportation and other issues. Recognizing that inflation has put taxpayers under pressure, governments may offer tax relief to homeowners, their voters, but not to the commercial property owner.

In Colorado, a November ballot issue would reduce the valuation of a residential property by $40,000 and of a commercial property by $50,000. This will be little help to an owner of a $2 million commercial property.

Relief for the commercial property owner must instead come from a deep dive into the assessor’s valuation, best performed by the property owner and an experienced property tax professional working as a team. What follows are key stages for preparing an appeal.

1. Understand and observe all filing deadlines.

Every state has a deadline for starting the appeal process. If a taxpayer misses that deadline, they lose the right to appeal. In some states, after paying their tax, a taxpayer might be allowed to file for an abatement sometime later.

It is important to provide the property tax professional with relevant information in sufficient time to analyze it before filing the appeal. This is a challenge in many cases, such as when the taxpayer receiving tax notices is out of state and their advisor is local. Contacting the advisor before tax notices go out can provide a head start, often enabling the advisor to find the property’s taxable value before the notice arrives.

2. Critically analyze the assessment basis.

By itself, a substantial value increase does not qualify as a reason to appeal. Often, the assessor will justify the increase based on the general market strength shown in substantially rising prices. The taxpayer must ask, is this for the entire county, or for this specific type of property in this specific location?

A recent example illustrates how assessors’ generalizations can overstate an individual property’s value change. As our firm appealed a client’s assessment in an expensive resort area, the local newspaper quoted the assessor stating that prices had increased 50% or even more. Available sales of comparable properties all occurred at least a year prior to the valuation period, while one was near the valuation period.

The assessor trended the earlier sales to the valuation period by making a 50% adjustment to each sales price. However, our team compared the most recent year-ago sale with the current sale of a comparable property in the same location, showing that the price per square foot only went up 14%. It was clear the 50% increase was a mass appraisal number covering the entire county, while prices in the subject property’s submarket increased at a much slower pace. This deep dive yielded results in the appeal.

3. Analyze the assessor’s comparable sales.

Most jurisdictions require assessors to value the fee simple estate, the real estate alone. Assessors have attempted to debate what this means, but what it clearly does not mean is a sale price based upon the income generated by a lease. Nor can the taxable value be based on the success of the business operated from the property.

Simply stated, fee simple value must be limited to the real estate, not the business. When applying this to an owner-occupied property, this means a fee-simple buyer would be purchasing a vacant property. Value is based on the price at which a willing buyer would buy, and a willing seller would sell, the property. And in the sale of an owner-occupied property, there is no lease.

Often in this situation, the assessor will nevertheless use the sale of a leased property as a comparable. It is not comparable, because the buyer is buying the income stream from the lease, not just the bricks and mortar. Moreover, the rent seldom reflects current market rent. Possibly the lease was signed when rents were higher than today, the lease escalated rents automatically, or the landlord agreed to build the property according to the tenant’s specifications and increased the rent by the amortized cost. Every lease is unique. The sale of a leased property is simply not the same as the sale of a property without a lease.

While examining income properties within the assessor’s comparable sales, be sure to analyze the income’s source. Taxable values of income-producing properties are based on income derived from the real estate and not income derived from other sources.

A hotel buyer, for example, is buying not only the bricks and mortar, but also the flag or brand, and the hotel’s reputation. These are intangibles included in the acquisition price. However, intangible value is not subject to a property tax.

Another example of this concept is seniors housing. Seniors housing has numerous profit centers beyond rent for the room. It may have a beauty shop, a physical therapy center, a recreation facility such as a bowling alley, special medical services and many other offerings. The resident pays rent, but also pays extra for the many services. For property tax purposes, the income used to determine value must be separated between business cashflow and income generated from the real estate.

Property tax in the current environment can indeed present a challenge, but it need not be overwhelming. The taxpayer must analyze the assessor’s value in depth to find factors that would result in a successful appeal. It may start with sticker shock over the assessor’s notice, but an experienced tax professional’s analysis can level the playing field between the assessor aggressively pursuing increased funding and the property tax owner looking for tax relief.

Michael Miller is Of Counsel in the Denver office of Spencer Fane, the Colorado member of American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys. Reach him at [email protected].