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Assessors for tax are notoriously different compared to actually FMV. Look at house sales and compare to assessment.
If Trump thought the assessors value was low the correct thing to do is hire an appraiser, get an actual value, and use that. As best the lawsuit seems to indicate Trump just made numbers up!
It’s commonly advised to not fight a low assessment because it reduces your property taxes. No one would assume a corrupt and/or ignorant judge would use that against him decades later.
According to the decision, signed a deed which restricted use of the property for anything other than a social club, including surrendering the right to subdivide the property and build homes thereon. Yet, in its filings, the Trump Organization submitted a valuation that ignored those land use restrictions, and claimed a valuation 2300% higher than the assessed value. And, the only evidence presented to the court to support the higher valuation was a conclusory affidavit from an expert, which, being conclusory, is of essentially no evidentiary value under established Florida law, and indeed established law pretty much everywhere.
So, what basis do you have for saying that only a corrupt or ignorant judge would reach the conclusion he did?
If beach front property assessments in Florida are anything like farmland assessments in the Midwest, such a valuation might not be completely ridiculous. Around me, pretty much all farmland is assessed at $1,500–$2,000 per acre, even though land hasn’t sold for that since the 1990s. One large farm near me recently sold for $20,000 an acre, but the assessed value is only $1,931 an acre. No farmer would (or should) get in trouble for valuing his land at 2023 rates, no matter what the assessor thinks. I’m not saying Trump’s properties are definitely the same, but it doesn’t seem immediately ridiculous to assume they might be.
Ok, but did the Trumps produce evidence that properties in the area often sell for 10x their assessed value? And you are ignoring the reference to the claimed value ignoring the restrictions on development. That is pretty bad, if true.
Regardless, remember the point is not that the judge is correct; it is that the claim that his decision can only be the result of corruption or ignorance does not seem to be consistent with the facts.
I’m typing this on my phone, so I’m not going to mess with links.
First, the county assessor lists Mar a Lago’s market value as $37 million. If it’s true that the judge valued it at $17–25 million, there’s already a major discrepancy. It’s worth noting that Trump paid $12 million for it in 1995, equivalent to $24.3 million today. For the property to be only worth $25 million, the judge has to assume that property values haven’t risen faster than inflation, which seems awfully dubious from where I sit. He also has to assume that the county assessor overvalued the property by 1.5–2.2 times its actual worth, which is interesting given his complaint that Trump has been overvaluing his property. Perhaps he felt the best way to compensate for Trump’s overvaluation was to opt for a noticeable undervaluation?
Secondly, some neighboring properties’ asking and sale prices are instructive. 168 King Rd. (4,874 sq. ft., not ocean-front) just sold for $14 million, against an assessed value of $4.1 million (and a market value of $8.4 million; I’m not clear what the difference between the two is). Another nearby property (500 Regents Park Rd—6,488 sq. ft., ocean-front) is listed for sale at $40 million, against an assessed value of $6.4 million ($12 million market value).
Mar-a-Lago’s main building, by contrast, is 37,414 sq. ft. The property also contains five more buildings, two pools, and five tennis courts, to say nothing of the land. That it’s all worth a measly $17–25 million doesn’t pass the smell test.
The judgement takes its numbers from the county assessor:
Possibly you're comparing the current valuation to the valuation in the relevant periods?
I also don't think you can reasonably use neighbouring properties prices as a guide to Mar-a-Lago's value when Mar-a-Lago has very different land use restrictions applied to it.
I know you aren’t from the states so you likely don’t have this local knowledge. Property tax values are untethered from actual FMV. The system isn’t designed to determine the real value of property. If you look at real estate, it is often sold well above the assessed property tax value. Indeed in many places even after a sale establishes fmv the property taxes don’t reset the valuation.
Also, land use certainly affects valuation. If Trump tried to sell MAL what do you think he’d get?
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