Assessors' incorrect use of the data inflates property taxes.

Tax assessors across the country are drawing battle lines to pit new valuation theories against accepted appraisal methodologies.

This fierce ideological assault threatens the sustainability of retail businesses weighed down by ever-increasing property taxes.

Retail landlords who desire to have their real estate valued on a fee simple basis routinely face assessors who claim that these owners want their property valued as a “dark store.” This prickly issue originally focused on how to value big-box stores for property tax purposes, but its scope has widened to affect a range of retail property types.

Dispute’s Roots Run Deep

Woolworth’s opened the first big-box store in 1962, the same year that McDonald’s introduced the golden arches and ushered in the concept of branding stores with identical interiors and exteriors.

Over the following decades, Walmart, Kmart, Target and other retailers married the big-box format with McDonald’s-style branding. Replicating the same store in many locations increased consumers’ brand recognition and reduced the owner’s cost to develop, stock open and operate new locations.

Much of today’s controversy over assessments stems from alternative financing methods that caught on with these major retailers. The two most common strategies are build-to-suit and sale-leaseback arrangements, both of which generate rent payments that exceed market rates.

A build-to-suit is a financial arrangement where the tenant’s rent is a repayment of the developer’s cost to acquire the land and build a tenant specific building. These transactions can include a variety of other non-real estate costs, such as financed inventory, personal property and/or cashback incentives.

A retailer uses sale-leaseback transactions to free up capital by selling its building and then renting it back under a long-term lease. The rent is purely a function of the amount of capital to be financed and the number of years to pay it back.

In either scenario, a landlord with one of these above-market leases in place to a high-credit tenant will often sell the lease and property to an investor. The resulting sales price is a function of the length of the lease in place and the strength of the tenant, and has nothing to do with the real estate’s fair market value. In other words, the value is no longer what the real estate is worth, but what the investor would pay to receive the income from that user.

Bad Data Proliferates

Property valuations for tax purposes are not done as single-property appraisals. In single-property appraisals, the appraiser uses data specific to a property to develop an opinion of its value. Tax assessors, on the other hand, use mass appraisals. The latter method values a universe of properties using common data.

The problem arises when non-market data taints the assessor’s common data. For instance, if the above-market rents from build-to-suits are included in the common data, the assessor will overstate the market rental rate and subsequently overstate property value under the income approach.

Concurrently, when common data includes investor acquisitions of properties with leases in place under these alternative financing methods, the sales comparison approach to value suffers from the same flawed methodology as the income approach.

The problem doesn’t stop there, as the defective data spills over into depreciation calculations used in the cost approach to valuation, and in developing capitalization rate percentages. Using bad common data will taint every commonly used valuation method and lead to an overvaluation.

Implications Outside the Box

This issue is worth watching for shopping center owners, investors and developers for two reasons. First, big-box tenants traditionally are high-credit national retailers committed to a financing-based lease on an absolute net basis. That makes them a valuable addition to a shopping center as a draw for customers, and to the investor as a guaranteed income stream.

The second reason to closely follow the assessment issue is often overlooked, but has more serious implications. What began as an anomaly in the method assessors used to value and tax big-box stores is now spreading to all retail. Assessors increasingly use incorrect, inflated, non-market data to value anchor stores, discount and department stores and strip centers, overstating valuations for tax purposes.

Most states require assessors to value commercial real estate uniformly and equally. That means that two identical buildings should have the same value.

The taxable value should not be higher if one is leased to a high-credit tenant and the other to an independent local retailer. The value of the business may be greater for one over the other, but the value of the real estate must be the same.

Uniformity and equality dissolve when real estate values fluctuate based on nothing more than the identity of the tenant. And uniformity and equality can exist only when assessors value bricks and mortar alone. That is not valuing a dark store; that is valuing the fee simple.

Linda Terrill is a partner in the Leawood, Kansas law firm of Property Tax Law Group, the Kansas and Nebraska member of American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A firm understanding of how assessors apply market data locally comes in handy for savvy owners.

The real estate market is flourishing, as articles in Heartland Real Estate Business seem to confirm. Recent headlines such as “General Contractors are off to a Running Start,” and “Speculative Industrial Construction is Making a Come Back in St. Louis Market,” certainly are encouraging to readers.

But investors must remain diligent in keeping their assessed property values in check, or risk paying for their complacency later.

By monitoring assessments and challenging them when necessary, taxpayers can maximize profit and stay competitive when the cycle inevitably reaches its peak and the market begins to slide.

To minimize taxes, every taxpayer should understand the property tax system. That requires a grasp of local market dynamics and how assessors apply market data in establishing assessments.

Real estate taxes are merely a function of the tax rate multiplied by the assessment. The assessment is the measure that, if applied equally, and based solely upon bare real estate, that measure will yield uniform taxation for you.

Assessments tend to follow Newton’s law of inertia. Sales often set assessments in motion, but that doesn’t mean that sale prices always lead to assessments.

Price Versus Value

Too often, assessors confuse price with taxable value. Assessed or taxable value should be based on real estate alone. Sale prices, on the other hand, often reflect other factors that greatly affect the sale.

For instance, the business acumen of tenants and property managers often influence commercial property prices.

The lodging industry has an abundance of business and personal property value that is often difficult to distinguish from real estate value.

Hotel buyers are often purchasing in-place contracts, a workforce, personal property, reservation systems, the reputation of food and beverage providers, and other intangible items. As a result, the business value of a hotel tends to fluctuate more rapidly than the actual value of the “bricks and sticks.”

Because these intangible elements are factored into the sale, an assessment that is later based on the sale price will reflect more than the real estate value, unless the taxpayer takes the right steps to prevent that from happening.

What to look for

It is possible to strip away non-taxable components and turn a sale into a useful indicator of market value. An assessor can rely on a properly adjusted sale in the assessment of the subject property, and when valuing comparable properties. But what is the proper method of adjustment?

Excluding intangibles from taxable value can be an elusive goal. Investors often place tremendous value on the credit-worthiness of tenants, length of lease terms and other non-real-estate items. Those components depend on the occupant’s business rather than upon the location or condition of property improvements.

For assessment purposes, sales must be adjusted to reflect what the price would be if the tenant were a typical market tenant, paying market rent under current market lease terms.

State nuances

Taxpayers should consider not only the sale itself when evaluating for assessment, but also the particular state’s laws concerning assessments. For instance, Ohio recently amended its statutes to preserve it in assessments. Prior to the amendment, an assessor “must” have considered a recent sale price to be the new assessment of the property, regardless of any non-real-estate factors that might have affected the sale price.

Under the amended statute, assessors “may” use the sale, assuming that the sale reflects the “fee simple as if unencumbered value.” Thus, Ohio now takes a more nuanced approach, assessing properties based on market rents rather than in-place contract rents, along with the intention that assessors use market occupancy and market creditworthiness in assessments.

Taxpayers in other states have challenged assessment statutes to achieve more equal and taxation. Courts in Michigan addressed the concept of build-to-suit leases and contract rents, which the initial tenant pays in part to repay the developer’s costs, making contract rents incomparable with market rents.

Michigan now requires assessors to utilize market rents and other market indices to determine market value. Likewise, courts in Kansas and Wisconsin have established case law recently that requires more equal and assessment practices.

While there may be similarities between some states regarding their assessment laws, and a general trend of states moving toward more assessment, all states apply their laws differently.

Taxpayers must give due care to their state’s distinct approach.

J. Kieran Jennings is a partner in the law firm of Siegel Jennings Co. LPA, the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania member of American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Schools, board of revision routinely thwart efforts aimed at "fair taxation."

When is the best time to submit an appraisal and other evidence in a tax appeal? That depends largely on tax policy and government culture, which dictate how taxpayers manage tax appeals.

In a perfect world, taxing entities would embrace fairness and equality, remembering that their mission is ultimately to serve the taxpayers. The reality is that government tax policy - and more importantly, governmental practice - is subject to the culture that permeates a department.

In Ohio, state lawmakers have been trying to make the state more taxpayer-friendly. For instance, legislators created a more equitable measure of tax by clarifying that property tax is based on the fee-simple, unencumbered market value of the real estate. So from a policy standpoint, Ohio appears to be becoming more taxpayer-friendly. At the local government level, however, taxpayers can face a different and often adversarial culture.

In a perfect world, taxing entities would embrace fairness and equality. The reality is that government tax policy is subject to the culture that permeates a department.

Schools, Counties Have Clout

Ohio taxpayers face two principal antagonists that seem equally determined to thwart the state legislature's pursuit of fair taxation. One opponent is the schools. In Cleveland as well as in other local tax districts, taxpayers encounter resistance and aggression from the schools. School districts routinely file complaints and tie up taxpayers in litigation lasting years.

The Ohio taxpayer's second foe is the county board of revision, which is effectively the judge and jury for tax cases at the local county level and becomes a party to subsequent appeals at the state level.

Recently, Cleveland's Cuyahoga County began posting on its website the evidence that taxpayers submitted in contesting tax assessments. That evidence often includes sensitive information about income and expenses, as well as rent rolls.

And although evidence submitted to a public body becomes a public document and is subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, there is a significant difference between burying evidence in a file and posting taxpayers' private information on the Internet.

The Catch-22 is that the taxpayer must provide sufficient evidence in order to prevail in a tax appeal, and typically that evidence is private income, expenses and rent rolls. Taxpayers understandably want that data to be closely protected, but under the new rules in Cuyahoga County, that personal information will be posted online.

Transparency Versus Privacy

A major hurdle taxpayers have to contend with is that Ohio law requires a complainant to provide the board of revision with all relevant information or evidence within the knowledge or possession of the complainant.

The law further states that if complainants don't provide the information in their initial appeal, they will be precluded from doing so later (unless good cause is shown). The challenge is, how can a taxpayer protect private information and yet still receive due process?

The requirement of private information, combined with the inevitability of it being posted online, can have a dramatic chilling effect. And for certain taxpayers, that prospect of prominent public disclosure becomes an Achilles' heel that prompts them to withdraw their cases, or simply let their assessments go uncontested. The county will have thus won the war without ever having gone to battle.

Tactical Maneuver

Although the facts will dictate how an attorney protects the taxpayer, in certain instances a taxpayer can refrain from hiring an appraiser and submitting sensitive data until after the board of revision hearing. By delaying the production of the appraisal, the taxpayer can still get the data into evidence at the state level via the appraisal even though it did not produce the data earlier.

Thus, the taxpayer can protect the data from Internet exposure and still use it on appeal. The down side of this tactic is the taxpayer does not present its best evidence at the county level.

There is no easy answer to the county board of revision's Catch 22. Each case presents its own set of facts that determine how to protect the taxpayer's privacy and yet prevail. As with all litigation, knowing the opposition, addressing the taxpayer's own weaknesses and understanding the rules and culture surrounding the case goes a long way toward achieving success.

J. Kieran Jennings is a partner in the law firm of Siegel Jennings Co., LPA, with offices in Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh. The firm is the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania member of the American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Owners appealing unfair tax assessments must aggressively and specifically examine the general economic climate.

"While area bankers express high hopes for the coming year, that optimism is not reflected in actual lending practices for the past year. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, commercial and industrial loan volume in the United States totaled $16.4 billion in 2012, up slightly from $14 billion in 2011."

By accident or design, assessors tend to punish commercial property owners by increasing the assessed value of properties that outperform the market, thereby generating more taxes for the local government. The problem arises from real property valuations based upon a cash flow analysis, which fails to take into account intangible qualities that boost cash flow but are unconnected to intrinsic real estate value.

Intangible qualities that can increase a commercial property's cash flow include the skills of the management and general business reputation of the owners. Assessors have a tendency to value the business rather than the real property. Consequently, assessors punish owners for efficient and successful management. In order to guard against such an outcome, owners appealing unfair tax assessments must aggressively and specifically examine the general economic climate. In analyzing commercial property, appraisers dedicate pages within each appraisal report to the local economy. Time after time, appellate reviewers in their rush to focus on the cash flow of the specific property simply skip over the plethora of general economic data that fills appraisal reports.

Two measures of local market performance are particularly important in appealing an assessment, however. One metric is retail sales, which provide a clear barometer of general economic conditions. Sales reflect the health of the consumer base and, most notably, employment. With diminished employment, sales fall in the marketplace. The other dataset to examine is the availability of credit for commercial property acquisition and/or development. While valuation authorities rarely acknowledge the relationship, retail sales and credit are inextricably linked.

Follow Sales Tax Receipts

A look at retail sales and availability of credit in the St. Louis marketplace provides a far better foundation for value analysis than do the population counts and various economic facts tacked onto assessors' reports.

In the city of St. Louis, total sales tax receipts increased every year from 2008 through 2012, with just a slight decline in 2010 (see chart). In 2013, however, the trend's trajectory has changed. The city of St. Louis has collected $30.7 million in sales tax receipts year-to-date through May, down 4.9 percent from $32.3 million during the same period a year ago.

Annual sales tax receipts for 2013 in St. Louis based were previously projected to reach just over $120 million based on the actual receipts for the first five months of 2013 and previous years' receipts during the last seven months of the year. However, the closing of a Macy's store in downtown St. Louis in May will dim this picture even further. Banks are feeling regulatory pressure to lower the concentration of commercial real estate loans in their portfolios. Lending to acquire or develop commercial buildings or residential subdivisions tanked during the Great Recession. Today, lenders give more scrutiny to a potential borrower's creditworthiness than before the downturn. The credit quality of borrowers or developers has in many respects become an important factor in the intrinsic value of the project or the real estate itself.

While area bankers express high hopes for the coming year, that optimism is not reflected in actual lending practices for the past year. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, commercial and industrial loan volume in the United States totaled $16.4 billion in 2012, up slightly from $14 billion in 2011. Compared to the market's peak loan volume of $26 billion originated in 2008, credit availability in the sector is clearly constrained.

Focus On Fair Market Value

Property owners should keep in mind that the determination of fair market value is based upon not only a willing seller, but also a willing buyer. A willing buyer must obtain financing, and the St. Louis market has tightened up considerably in that regard. A tax appeal based on the scrutiny of credit availability and retail sales will go a long way toward ensuring that careful, prudent entrepreneurship and management will go unpunished by an excessive tax burden.

Jerome Wallach is a partner at The Wallach Law Firm, the Missouri member of American Property Tax Counsel, the national affiliation of property tax attorneys. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Owners at risk of unfairly high assessments pending Ohio Supreme Court guidance

"Recent history shows that districts are using sale prices to impose unreasonable tax burdens on taxpayers..."

Like much of the nation, Cleveland is experiencing sluggish but discernible improvements in its real estate market, and buyers are beginning to purchase real estate at prices that exceed the property's tax assessment value. The resulting real estate price volatility puts many Ohio property owners — and recent buyers in particular — at greater risk of receiving an unexpected and potentially unfair increase in their property tax bill. When property values are fragile, unexpected increases in expenses can be disastrous, and that includes an unexpected rise in real estate taxes. Ohio is one of the few states where school districts and other taxing entities have the legal authority to protest the assessed values of properties in their districts and to seek increases in taxable value. In fact it is customary for school districts in Ohio to seek an increased valuation and consequent rise in taxes on properties that have recently sold.

While the practice is customary, it is neither predictable nor uniform. The assessment on a property that recently sold can be significantly higher than the assessments on neighboring properties based on its sale price. Moreover, different taxing districts have different policies as to the extent and manner in which they pursue this remedy. For instance, some taxing districts may not aggressively chase sales. Others may seek not only to raise future assessments, but also to retroactively increase the assessment for the past year.

Taxing Sales

In many cases, a recent sale of real property is the best indication of its value, but there are exceptions. Modern real estate transactions frequently include the simultaneous transfer of non-real estate items, or the amount of consideration paid may reflect factors other than the fair market value of the real property. If these non-real estate items are not specifically identified and distinguished from the real estate value, they can be included in the value assigned to the property for files an increase complaint.

Recent history shows that with increasing frequency districts are using sale prices to impose unreasonable tax burdens on taxpayers. In an effort to correct this trend, on June 11, 2012, the state of Ohio enacted a statute that clearly states that real estate assessments must be based on fee simple estate, as if unencumbered. Moreover, the new statute further provides that where there is a recent arm's length sale, the auditor may consider the sale to be true value.

Read together, in order for the assessor to consider the sale price to be true value, that sale would have to reflect the fee simple estate, as if unencumbered. To understand why and how that is so important, it is useful to look back over developments in Ohio law over the past decade.

The Changing Law

Ohio law always provided that assessments shall be made based on true value and that "the auditor shall consider the sale price of such tract, lot, or parcel ... to be the true value for taxation." In 2005, the Ohio Supreme Court interpreted that statutory language to mean that there is no further evidence necessary to prove true value. Later, the Supreme Court expanded the ruling by stating that leased fee sales were also acceptable. (Leased fee value is based on a landlord's expected rental income from a leased property.) Even worse, later cases expanded the law to include leased fee transactions as comparable sales even when appraising fee simple, owner-occupied properties. And finally, other cases set precedents that precluded the county auditor, the state Board of Tax Appeals, or Common Pleas Courts from taking into consideration circumstances which indicated that the sale was not representative of market value. Despite the state's recent efforts to stop counties and school boards (which can file suits) from preying on investors buying property in Ohio, the trend has continued.

Real estate buyers in Cleveland must be even more careful to take appropriate steps to ensure fair treatment. As recently as March 2013, an assessor used the sale price of the ongoing business of a 127-bed nursing home, which was part of a sale that included 72 other nursing home operations in a multi-state transaction, to determine its assessed value. The sale price of the nursing home was $10.6 million, and the assessor valued the property at that price. The taxpayer's appraisal valued only the real estate, which came to $3.5 million (see chart). In short, the county is now taxing the value of the personal property and business operation at the nursing home when it only has authority to tax the real estate.

State lawmakers have attempted to make the law more uniform and equal by establishing a standard of fee simple, as if unencumbered, while providing flexibility to use a sale where it is warranted. What is still needed is guidance from the Supreme Court to enforce that standard.
Until the court has an appropriate case to provide that needed guidance, investors need to structure transactions with taxation in mind. To be recently purchased must be treated like those that have not been sold. Unfortunately, the burden falls on the parties in the transaction to make sure that all documents involved in the sale, particularly those that are recorded publicly, reflect only the real estate value.

Countermeasures Emerge

As an alternative, many investors have taken to purchasing the entity that owns the property rather than the real estate. Purchasing the entity eliminates the need to record a new deed, which is often the triggering event for school districts to file complaints seeking additional property taxes. As a result, the county may unknowingly be forced to treat all taxpayers alike. Moreover, state law prevents the schools from using the purchase of an entity to treat new buyers differently than existing owners. In 2000 and in 1998, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the sale price of all the shares of a company's stock does not establish the value of the company's real property. This is true even where the only asset of the company is its real estate. By purchasing an entity rather than the bare real estate, a taxpayer has at least a fighting chance to have equal treatment under the law. Given the complexities of such a transaction, however, buyers should seek local counsel when using this acquisition strategy.

Kieran Jennings is a partner in the law firm of Siegel Jennings Co., L.P.A., the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania member of American Property Tax Counsel. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

How Wisconsin Supreme Court decision on assessments of specialized manufacturing plants affects owners

"The critical aspect of the case for property owners is the Supreme Court's conclusion that there was a market for continued use of the property, when neither party could identify an example of such a sale..."

By Robert L. Gordon, Esq., as published by Heartland Real Estate Business, July 2012

Wisconsin tax law requires assessors to assess real estate at its fair market value. Whenever possible, that value must reflect recent sales of reasonably comparable property. Longstanding Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions have held that real estate cannot be assessed based on an imaginary or hypothetical market, or at its intrinsic value to the current owner, if that value differs from fair market value. Under those decisions, real estate can only be assessed at what market evidence indicates a third party would pay for the property in the open market.

In the recent case of a specialized plant, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the property owner's argument that the plant was assessed at its intrinsic value to the owner's manufacturing business and not at its fair market value as real estate.

The Background

The plant was built to manufacture a highly specialized food product, using a process regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The manufacturer incorporated unique real estate features — at tremendous cost — to meet FDA standards. These included a spray dryer more than 100 feet tall housed in an 8-story tower, as well as concrete surfaces specially treated to eliminate any air pockets where moisture with microbial growth could reside.

At trial before the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission, neither the assessor with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue nor the manufacturer's appraiser could identify a single instance anywhere in the United States where a similar plant had sold for continued use to manufacture the same product. The manufacturer's appraiser concluded that there was no market to sell the property for continued use, and that the highest and best use of the plant was as an ordinary food processing plant.

The assessor, however, speculated that one of the manufacturer's few competitors could be a likely purchaser of the plant, and that there was a market for the plant for continued use. The assessor thus valued the property based on its cost to the manufacturer, including the expensive features added solely to support production of its one specialized product, but disregarding the lack of value of those improvements to a purchaser buying the plant for any other use.

The Decision

The Tax Appeals Commission upheld the Department of Revenue's conclusion that there was a market for continued use of the property to manufacture the same specialized product, thereby upholding the assessment based on the plant's cost to the manufacturer.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the Tax Appeals Commission and rejected the manufacturer's arguments that the plant was being assessed at its intrinsic value to the owner's manufacturing business and that this was inconsistent with prior Supreme Court decisions.

The critical aspect of the case for property owners is the Supreme Court's conclusion that there was a market for continued use of the property, when neither party could identify an example of such a sale. The court held that a "market can exist for a subject property, especially a special-use property, without actual sales data of similar properties being available." The court further stated that "markets are necessarily forward-looking" and that "empirical evidence of past sales activity is certainly informative, but it is not conclusive."

The Net Effect

Traditionally, owners of properties with expensive features included solely to support the business conducted on the property have pointed to a lack of comparable property sales as evidence that the features do not translate into real estate value.

Because of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's conclusions that markets are forward-looking, that lack of evidence of sales is not conclusive, and that a market can exist without actual sales data, it may now become more challenging for taxpayers to contest assessments. This may be especially true for assessments that are primarily based on the cost of features that are valuable only to the current owner.

In the Wisconsin Supreme Court case, the manufacturer argued that affirming the Tax Appeals Commission decision would place an impossible burden on property owners to prove a negative, which is the absence of a market. The court disagreed, stating that taxpayers are only required to present "sufficient contrary evidence" to demonstrate that an assessor's highest and best use conclusion is incorrect based on the existence of a particular market.

As a result, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has left the door open for property owners to claim that there is no market to sell their plant for continued use. In light of the decision, and the statutory presumption that an assessor's conclusions are correct, property owners should be prepared to make a strong case if they intend to establish the absence of a market.

That case might include an analysis of the industry in which the manufacturer operates. Such analysis could attempt to show that there is no one who would purchase the plant to manufacture the same product. Thus, no one would pay what the plant is worth to the current owner to buy the plant as real estate.

Robert L. Gordon is a partner at the Milwaukee law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, the Wisconsin member of the American Property Tax Counsel. You can contact him via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..