County of Mecklenburg v. Carter

• Decision Date: 04 November 1994
• Docket Number: No. 931878,931878
• Citation: 248 Va. 522,449 S.E.2d 810
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: COUNTY OF MECKLENBURG v. Marvin O. CARTER, et al. Record

Page 810

449 S.E.2d 810

248 Va. 522

COUNTY OF MECKLENBURG v. Marvin O. CARTER, et al.

Record No. 931878.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

Nov. 4, 1994.

Russell O. Slayton, Jr., Lawrenceville (Slayton, Bain and Clary, on brief), for appellant.

No brief or argument for appellees.

Present: All the Justices.

WHITING, Justice.

In this suit to correct an erroneous real estate tax assessment, we decide whether the taxpayers sustained their burden of showing a lack of uniformity in the general reassessment of property taxes.

Consistent with established appellate principles, we state the facts in the light most favorable to the taxpayers, the parties who prevailed in the trial court. Marvin O. Carter and Oneta W. Carter own a six-room, two-bath frame residence in the town of Boydton. Their residence is a reconstruction of a house that had been built in Dinwiddie County in the latter part of the eighteenth century, dismantled by the Carters in 1988, and reconstructed in Boydton in the period between 1988 and 1991. While reconstructing their house, the Carters added modern conveniences, including electrical wiring, plumbing, and a heating and cooling system.

The Carters do not contend that their residence was assessed for more than its fair market value in the 1991 reassessment of real estate by Mecklenburg County. Rather, they contend that the assessments of their residence for the years 1990, 1991, and 1992 were not uniform "in comparison with the assessments of other properties in the same community."

The controversy centers upon a comparison of the 1991 reassessed valuation of the Carter house with the valuations of certain other houses in the neighborhood. These reassessed valuations were based upon appraisals prepared for the county's 1991 reassessment by an appraisal service operated by Robert Hugh Pearson, Jr., an expert real estate appraiser. Although the Carter property assessments changed during the three years in question, the changes were due partly to the completion of the house in 1991 and to the county-wide increase in assessed values of all properties in 1992. The parties were in apparent agreement that the assessment ratios between the Carter property and the properties with which it was compared remained approximately the same during the years in question.

Failing to obtain relief in their administrative appeal of these assessments, the Carters proceeded under the provisions of Code § 58.1-3984(A) by filing a petition to correct the assessment in the circuit court. ^* At the hearing on the Carters' petition, Fred C. Forberg, an expert real estate appraiser, and Mr. Carter testified in support of the Carters' claim.

Mr. Forberg opined that the Carters' property was not assessed in a manner consistent with that used in assessing other properties in the area. His testimony was based primarily upon (1) the fact that Mr. Forberg could find no record of the sale of any house in Boydton for more than $130,000, and (2) a comparison of the assessments of the Carter house with two immediately adjacent houses. The 2,532 square foot Carter house was assessed for $168,483; the adjacent 3,976.5 square foot house of Willoughby S. Hundley, III, was assessed for $128,469; and the other adjacent 2,330 square foot house of Frank C. Bedinger, Jr., was assessed for $103,799. Noting that the Carter house was only "about sixty percent of the size of the [Hundley] house," but of the same quality of construction, and that the Bedinger house was "about the same size" as the Carter house, but built 40 years before the Carters reconstructed their house, Mr. Forberg concluded that the assessment of the Carter house ought to be "pretty close" to that of the Hundley house.

Mr. Carter was a former Commissioner of Revenue of Mecklenburg County experienced in the appraisal of properties. His testimony was based primarily upon the summaries of the Pearson appraisal reports on six nearby houses and upon the records of recent sales of three other properties in the vicinity of the Carter property. Two of the six summaries covered the Hundley and Bedinger houses, and four covered other houses in the Carters' neighborhood. All but one of these six houses were larger than the Carter house, but all had been appraised and assessed for less than the Carter property.

Mr. Pearson described the methodology consistently applied by his company in preparing their appraisals for the reassessments. Under Pearson's supervision, the appraisers secured detailed information of the size, quality, and condition of the improvements on each piece of real property in the county. With that information, the appraisers computed the cost of reproducing those improvements and adjusted that cost to the present fair market value of such improvements by a consideration of their age, condition, usability, and location, as well as any unusual factors affecting their fair market value.

Mr. Pearson also testified that the...