London Bridge Resort, Inc. v. Mohave County

27 P.3d 819, 200 Ariz. 462, 352 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 2001 Ariz. App. LEXIS 105
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJuly 10, 2001
DocketNo. 1 CA-TX 00-0013
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 27 P.3d 819 (London Bridge Resort, Inc. v. Mohave County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
London Bridge Resort, Inc. v. Mohave County, 27 P.3d 819, 200 Ariz. 462, 352 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 2001 Ariz. App. LEXIS 105 (Ark. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

OPINION

RYAN, Judge.

¶ 1 The question we must answer in this appeal is whether Mohave County exceeded its statutory authority in valuing time-share condominium units by considering estimated market values of time-share interval interests associated with the units. Because the County’s valuation method complies with Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) section 33-1204 (2000), we conclude that the County did not exceed its authority in adopting its sales comparison valuation method. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 The appellants are London Bridge Resort, Inc. and Resort Association, Inc. (collectively, “LBRI”). In 1986, LBRI’s predecessor-in-interest1 bought an existing hotel, land, and commercial buildings adjacent to the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. In 1990, LBRI recorded a plat and declarations [464]*464that transformed the existing hotel into a time-share condominium project that was initially composed of 102 units. Conversion activities proceeded, and the original timeshare declarations were repeatedly amended during the period 1990 through 1998. When the conversion process was complete, the project encompassed a total of 122 condominium units.

¶ 3 Each condominium unit is either a studio, a one-bedroom unit, or a two-bedroom unit. Under the time-share declarations each unit is “divided in time.” The resulting divisions are called “interval interests” or “interval units.” Each interval interest is associated with one of the three types of units and is designated accordingly as a “Studio Interval Unit, a One Bedroom Interval Unit, or a Two Bedroom Interval Unit.” The purchaser of an interval interest receives a non-severable membership in the owners’ association and the right to occupy and use one unit of the associated type for one week each year or every other year, depending on the particular interval interest purchased. Interval interests do not include rights in any particular condominium unit or any particular calendar week.

¶4 Each interval interest purchaser also receives, via warranty deed, an undivided fractional fee simple interest in all 122 condominium units and the common elements of the condominium project. The fraction on which a given interval interest is based is equivalent to the ratio between the average square footage of the type of unit the owner has acquired the right to occupy, and the combined square footage of the 122 units multiplied by 51. No owner or group of owners can sell a condominium unit. None of the units has been or ever can be owned separately from the other units. All sales pertaining to the condominium project are of interval interests.

¶ 5 Each condominium unit has a separate tax parcel number. The Mohave County Assessor has never assigned tax parcel numbers to interval interests. Every year since the condominium project was created, the Assessor has issued a separate valuation notice for each condominium unit. Property taxes levied on the condominium units are billed to the owners’ association and are funded by the interval interest owners through regular assessments for ownership expenses.

¶ 6 In Arizona, taxable property is to be assessed at its “full cash value.” A.R.S. § 42-11001(5) (Supp.2000). “Full cash value” means the value determined as set forth by statute, or if no statutory valuation method is set forth, “full cash value is synonymous with market value which means the estimate of value that is derived annually by using standard appraisal methods and techniques.” Id. Market value is generally .determined through three common appraisal approaches: capitalizing the income stream (“income method”), estimating replacement cost less depreciation (“cost method”), and estimating market value by comparable sales (“sales comparison method”). Bus. Realty of Arizona, Inc. v. Maricopa County, 181 Ariz. 551, 553-54, 892 P.2d 1340, 1342-43 (1995); cf. A.R.S. §§ 42-11054(A)(1), 42-16051(B) (1999). However, other “hybrid” methods may also be permissible. See Recreation Cntrs. of Sun City, Inc. v. Maricopa County, 162 Ariz. 281, 291, 782 P.2d 1174, 1184 (1989).

¶ 7 Assessors typically use the cost method to value condominium units in a new project, then switch to the sales comparison method when a sufficient number of units has been sold to render that method a reliable indicator of market value. From 1991 through 1998, every county assessor in Arizona valued all residential condominium units under either the replacement cost method or the sales comparison method, regardless of whether they were time-shared. Because no individual condominium units in the London Bridge Resort had been or could be sold as such, from 1991 through 1998 the Mohave County Assessor valued those units by the replacement cost method. But throughout that period, the Mohave County Assessor also tracked the affidavits of value filed under A.R.S. section 11-1133 (Supp.2000) on each sale of an interval interest in the London Bridge Resort. From the information reflected on those affidavits, the Assessor formed the opinion that a significant component of value inhering in time-share condominium units was escaping assessment.

[465]*465¶ 8 The Assessor’s office formulated a new methodology for valuing time-share condominium units and applied it in valuing the London Bridge Resort units for tax years 1999 and 2000. Under this methodology, the Assessor first determined the most probable sales prices of interval interests in studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units, respectively, using recent market sales of such interests. Each such price was then multi: plied by the number of interval interests sold or available for sale for each type of unit. This yielded a “gross market value” for each type of condominium unit.

¶ 9 The gross market values were then reduced by 50% to account for

extraordinary initial marketing costs, business going concern value, excess sales commission costs, unusual financing, arms-length transaction irregularities, atypical developer risk, extended marketing time and other non-realty intangibles such as vacation conveniences and services, exchange privileges and unusual closing costs.

The Assessor reduced each gross market value by an additional 10% to account for personal property. Twenty percent of the remaining amount was then deducted “as an equity adjustment to account for the general level of assessment in Arizona and Mohave County.”

¶ 10 In summary, Mohave County’s valuation process for 1999 and 2000, began by taking an average of recent selling prices of interval interests for each of the three condominium unit categories and multiplying those averages by the corresponding number of interval interests for each category. After discounting the results by a uniform rate of 68% to account for non-real estate factors, the County ascribed the final figures to every individual unit in the categories to which they pertained, yielding identical valuations and tax bills for all units in each category.

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Bluebook (online)
27 P.3d 819, 200 Ariz. 462, 352 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 2001 Ariz. App. LEXIS 105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/london-bridge-resort-inc-v-mohave-county-arizctapp-2001.