Failure to Fix Report Dooms Expert’s Testimony
A taxpayer’s assessments were affirmed after the taxpayer’s attorney rejected an opportunity to update its expert’s report to correct an error raised before trial. The subject property contained six condominium office units in a single building, each of which was separately assessed. The municipality objected to the taxpayer’s report because it valued the building as a single parcel, rather than as the six individually assessed parcels identified in the tax records and the taxpayer’s complaints. The municipality suggested that the trial be adjourned so the taxpayer could revise its report, but the taxpayer’s attorney rejected the offer and preferred to move to trial.
Following the trial, the Tax Court judge found that the expert’s failure to offer an opinion as to the value of each individual condominium unit left the court without sufficient evidence to determine that the six individual units were over assessed. The judge noted that merely dividing the expert’s proffered assessment between the six units, as suggested by the taxpayer’s expert, was not evidence “definite, positive and certain in quality and quantity to overcome the presumption” of correctness of the individual assessments.
In New Jersey, original assessments are entitled to a presumption of validity, and the appealing taxpayer has the burden of proving that the assessment is erroneous by cogent evidence. Thus, a taxpayer must present evidence sufficient to demonstrate the value assessed to the subject property raises a debatable question as to the validity of the assessment. Here, the attorney’s failure to accept the time to revise the taxpayer’s report denied the expert an opportunity to address the assessment of each individual unit, and left the Tax Court with no choice but to affirm the assessment because of a lack of cogent evidence.
A copy of the Tax Court’s opinion in 1280 Wall SPE, LLC v. Twp. of Lyndhurst can be found here.
For more on property tax cases focused on expert testimony and report issues, or lack thereof, please see the following blog posts:
Experts’ Opinions on Golf Course Valuation Not Up to Par
