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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA homeowner seeking to reduce the valuation of his home did not provide enough evidence to the Indiana Board of Tax Review to support his argument, the Indiana Tax Court ruled Wednesday.
Mirko Blesich challenged the final determination of the Indiana Board of Tax Review that valued his St. John property at $300,000 for the 2007-2010 tax years. Blesich appealed those tax years after assessments ranged from $300,900 to $320,000. Both the county assessor and Belsich presented evidence in support of their positions, including the average sale prices of properties that had sold in Blesich’s neighborhood. Blesich believed his home should have been assessed at no more than $270,000 in any of those years.
The Board of Tax Review found the assessor and Blesich failed to show either of their claimed assessments were correct, so it ordered the 2007-2010 assessments to revert to the property’s 2006 assessed value of $300,000.
Blesich presented information indicating three properties on his street sold for less per square foot than what his home was assessed at per square foot, but he did not provide specific information helpful to the tax board, Senior Judge Thomas Fisher wrote. In addition, the appraisal of his home valuing it at $275,000 was completed in March 2012 and he failed to provide any explanation of how its value related back. It is his duty to walk the tax board through every element of his analysis and trend his 2012 appraisal back to a 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and/or 2010 value, which he did not do.
Fisher affirmed the board’s final determination in Mirko Blesich v. Lake County Assessor, 49T10-1410-TA-64.
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