Ehp Glendale, LLC v. County of Los Angeles

193 Cal. App. 4th 262, 122 Cal. Rptr. 3d 378, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 237
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 7, 2011
DocketNo. B217036
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 193 Cal. App. 4th 262 (Ehp Glendale, LLC v. County of Los Angeles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ehp Glendale, LLC v. County of Los Angeles, 193 Cal. App. 4th 262, 122 Cal. Rptr. 3d 378, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 237 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

Opinion

FLIER, J.

The County of Los Angeles (County) appeals from the grant of summary judgment to EHP Glendale, LLC, and Eagle Hospitality Properties Trust, Inc. (Eagle), on Eagle’s action for a property tax refund. The County contends the trial court erred in ruling as a matter of law that the Los Angeles County Assessor (assessor) and the Los Angeles County Assessment Appeals Board (Board) used the wrong methodology in appraising the Glendale Hilton Hotel (hotel or property) after its purchase by Eagle. In turn, Eagle cross-appeals from the trial court order denying its motion for attorney fees.

We hold that the trial court erred in granting a summary judgment on an incomplete record, and, in any case, the record establishes there are triable issues of material fact. For the reasons explained below, the judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for trial.

FACTS1

1. The Subject Property

The property at issue is located near the intersection of Brand Boulevard and Glenoaks Boulevard in the City of Glendale (City). The 18-story structure, built in 1991, is operated as a full-service first-class hotel with 351 guestrooms, including 13 suites. The hotel encompasses about 285,000 square feet of improvements, including a lobby, administrative offices, hotel laundry, [265]*265two ballrooms, a “prefunction” area, seven meeting rooms, a business center, a fitness facility, a gift shop, an outdoor pool and spa with sundeck, two restaurants, a lounge, kitchen facilities and an approximately 196,000-square-foot, five-level, below-grade parking garage accommodating over 500 vehicles.

2. Hotel Sale and Purchase

In January 2005, the Hilton Hotels Corporation (Hilton) offered the hotel for sale. Hilton marketed the property as being located in a prime location, distant from competing Hilton hotels, relatively insulated from new supply, in good physical condition and the only “four diamond” facility in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys.

In May 2005, Eagle and Hilton entered into a sale and purchase agreement for Eagle to acquire the hotel. As part of the transaction, Hilton and Eagle entered into a franchise agreement for Eagle to use the Hilton franchise in exchange for payment of a royalty and a management contract under which Hilton agreed to continue managing the hotel for two years.

The hotel purchase closed in June 2005. The purchase price was $79.8 million and included the real property, personal property (e.g., furniture, fixtures and equipment) and certain intangible assets and rights.2 Under the stipulated facts, the franchise agreement with Hilton and the management contract were among the intangible assets acquired by Eagle during the sale.

3. Postsale Price Refund

Eagle took title to the hotel subject to a covenant running with the land allowing the Glendale Redevelopment Agency (redevelopment agency) to participate in a percentage of the hotel’s gross revenue. Because Hilton was unable to reach a satisfactory agreement with the City to eliminate the redevelopment agency’s profit participation, Hilton paid Eagle a postclosing refund of $2.5 million under the terms of the purchase agreement. The $79.8 million purchase price was effectively reduced to $77.3 million.

4. Property Reassessment

After Eagle purchased the property, the assessor reassessed the property as required by Proposition 13. The assessor initially enrolled a total value for the hotel of $79.8 million, allocating $7.8 million to the land, about $68.5 million to improvements and about $3.4 million to personal property.

[266]*2665. Appeal to Board

Eagle appealed the enrolled assessment to the Board, contending the market value of the property should be decreased to $51 million. Eagle argued that the assessor’s methodology for appraising the hotel was invalid and that the assessment impermissibly captured the value of nontaxable intangible assets. The Board held a valuation hearing over the course of six days.

A. Eagle’s Valuation

Eagle argued at the hearing before the Board that the franchise agreement, the management agreement and the assembled hotel workforce had indepen-: dent value at the time of sale and that the assessor was legally required to deduct those values from the purchase price in the assessment. Eagle further argued that the hotel’s various service centers, such as food and beverage, room telephone and telecommunications services, business center, vending machines, health club, guest laundry and parking facilities, were independent businesses whose value also should have been deducted from the hotel’s purchase price.

Eagle’s expert appraiser testified he valued the property using all three recognized approaches to value, i.e., sales comparison, income capitalization and cost.3 Based on all three approaches, his final opinion of the value of the going concern hotel business (including land, improvements, personal property and intangible assets and rights) was $77.3 million.

As a final step, however, Eagle’s appraiser incorporated a value allocation made by another of Eagle’s experts who appraised the fair market value of (1) the Hilton flag and franchise, (2) the assembled and trained workforce, and (3) the hotel’s various service centers. That analysis resulted in ascribed values of $7.1 million for the franchise, $265,000 for the assembled workforce and $7.3 million for the hotel’s various service centers, or a claimed total value for intangible assets and rights of $14.6 million.

From his final opinion of property value of $77.3 million, Eagle’s valuation expert deducted the ascribed value of intangible assets and rights, to account for the “going concern” value of the hotel business. He concluded that the value of the taxable property (including land, improvements and [267]*267personal property and excluding intangible assets and rights) was $62.6 million.

B. Assessor’s Valuation

During the valuation hearing, the assessor’s deputy, whose analysis the assessor adopted, testified he employed the income capitalization approach. Under this method, he analyzed the historical operating revenue and expenses of the hotel and used the data to develop a stabilized income and expense projection for the property as of the June 2005 date of the hotel’s change in ownership.

After projecting the hotel’s income revenue from all sources, the assessor’s deputy deducted appropriate projected expenses to arrive at a net operating income for the hotel. These deductions from the income stream included Hilton’s management and franchise fees, labor costs and marketing expenses.

Using a direct capitalization technique, also called the “Rushmore method,”4 the deputy assessor divided the stabilized net income by a capitalization rate derived from sales of comparable hotels to arrive at the estimated value of the property as of the date of purchase. This calculation yielded an estimated value for the hotel of $76.3 million.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
193 Cal. App. 4th 262, 122 Cal. Rptr. 3d 378, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 237, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ehp-glendale-llc-v-county-of-los-angeles-calctapp-2011.