Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
A taxpayer failed to prove that it was incorrect to make her present market-based evidence to support her property value, the Indiana Tax Court has ruled in affirming a decision from the Indiana Board of Tax Review.
Mary Abraytis owns residential property in Valparaiso that she purchased in 2015 for $169,200.
For the 2019 assessment year, Abraytis’ property was valued at $174,900.
Abraytis challenged the assessment, first with the Porter County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals and then with the Indiana Board of Tax Review.
The tax review board ordered in December 2020 that the 2019 assessment be reduced to $150,500.
The assessor again increased Abraytis’ property assessment the next year to $196,400.
She appealed the assessment increase to the PTABOA and, when the PTABOA failed to timely act on her appeal, she petitioned the tax review board for relief.
During a telephonic hearing on the appeal in June 2021, the assessor presented an appraisal report that had been prepared by an Indiana certified general appraiser.
The appraisal report, dated June 4, 2021, estimated the Jan. 1, 2020, value of Abraytis’ property to be $212,000.
The report relied on the sales data from four purportedly comparable properties. The assessor asked the tax review board to increase Abraytis’ assessment to reflect the $212,000 appraisal report’s estimate.
The tax review board issued a final determination in October 2021 in which it found the assessor made a prima facie case in support of his assessment. The board concluded that while Abraytis identified some problems with the appraisal report that detracted from its reliability, it still retained enough probative value to support the assessor’s assessment.
Because the assessor made a prima facie case, the board explained that the burden shifted to Abraytis to rebut the assessor’s evidence with her own market-based evidence, and the board determined she failed to meet that burden.
As a result, the board upheld the assessor’s original 2020 assessment.
But the tax review board declined to raise Abraytis’ assessment to the $212,000 value provided in the appraisal report, explaining that some of the identified “problems” did not make it “strong enough” to support the increase in the assessment.
Abraytis appealed to the Indiana Tax Court, arguing the tax review board was wrong to make her present market-based evidence to support her value rather than her revised property record card.
But the Tax Court ruled Abraytis failed to clearly support her reasoning.
“Indeed, most of Abraytis’s reasons for challenging the final determination are unclear,” the opinion says in ruling she waived the court’s review of her claims.
Senior Judge Martha Wentworth wrote the opinion.
The case is Mary Abraytis v. Porter County Assessor, 21T-TA-42.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.