REBECCA WALKER, AS PALM BEACH COUNTY PROPERTY APPRAISER, APPELLANT,
v.
GEORGE A. SMATHERS, ET AL., APPELLEES
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Florida appellate court reversed the trial court's tax assessment reduction, holding that the trial court applied the wrong legal standard by making its own valuation determination rather than testing whether the assessment could be sustained under any reasonable hypothesis of legal assessment.
A trial court errs when it substitutes its own valuation judgment for the proper standard of determining whether a tax assessment can be sustained under any reasonable hypothesis of legal assessment.
[1] A property appraiser is entitled to consider economic rent when evaluating property encumbered by leases that do not return present value to the owner.
Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the trial court erred in its legal approach to appellees' challenge of the tax assessment. The trial court, instead of determining whether the appellees had proven that the assessment could not be sustained under any reasonable hypothesis of legal assessment, made a factual determination of what it believed the property was worth.”
Court explaining the trial court's error in applying the wrong standard for evaluating tax assessments
The property appraiser assessed appellees' property for the year 1983, and the appellees challenged the assessment in trial court. The trial court red…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
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PER CURIAM.
We reverse and remand with directions that the trial court reinstate the tax assessment made by the property appraiser on appellees’ property for the year 1983. In our view the trial court erred in its legal approach to appellees’ challenge of the tax assessment. The trial court, instead of determining whether the appellees had proven that the assessment could not be sustained under any reasonable hypothesis of legal assessment, made a factual determination of what it believed the property was worth. That simply is not the standard by which an assessment is to be evaluated. See Bystrom v. Whitman, 488 So. 2d 520 (Fla.1986); also see Bystrom v. Bal Harbour 101 Condominium Association, 502 So. 2d 1312 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987).
The record reflects an abundance of evidence supporting the assessment as being within a reasonable range of values established by recognized appraisal methods. Specifically, this court held in Century Village v. Walker, 449 So. 2d 378 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), that the property appraiser is entitled to consider economic rent, as the appraiser did here, when the property is encumbered by leases which do not return present value to the owner. In addition, the record contains evidence of sales of comparable properties in amounts far in excess of the assessment in question.
ANSTEAD, WALDEN and STONE, JJ., concur.
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S. Bell Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Broward Cnty., 665 So. 2d 272 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995)…d its equal protection challenge. See Blake v. Xerox, 447 So. 2d 1848 (Fla.1984) (the standard for reviewing property tax assessment is whether assessment could be sustained under any reasonable hypothesis of legality). See also, Walker v. Smathers, 507 So. 2d 1207 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987) and Southern Bell, 632 So. 2d at 273. Next we turn to Southern Bell’s contesting of the effect of the 15% cost of sale, or “eighth criterion,”2 adjustment made by the Department to all of the selling prices in its sales assessme…
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Servico Ctr. Assocs., Ltd. v. Walker, 528 So. 2d 139 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988)…PER CURIAM. Affirmed on the authority of Bystrom v. Whitman, 488 So. 2d 520 (Fla.1986), and Walker v. Smathers, 507 So. 2d 1207 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987). HERSEY, C.J., and GUNTHER and STONE, JJ., concur.…
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Scripps Howard Cable Co. v. Havill, 665 So. 2d 1071 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995)…iser’s determination of just value must be upheld if it was lawfully reached and if it is supported by any reasonable hypothesis of legality. Blake v. Xerox Corp., 447 So. 2d 1348 (Fla.1984). A tax assessment is presumed correct, Walker v. Smothers, 507 So. 2d 1207 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), and if the assessor reaches the right result using the wrong method, no ground for reversal exists. Bystrom v. Whitman, 488 So. 2d 520 (Fla.1986) (holding that the core issue in a tax assessment challenge is the amount of the as…
Authorities Cited
- Bystrom v. S.F. Whitman, 488 So. 2d 520 (Fla. 1986)
- Century Vill. v. Walker, 449 So. 2d 378 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984)
- Bystrom v. BAL Harbour 101 Condo. Ass'n, Inc., 502 So. 2d 1312 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)