Opinion ID: 1701283
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Adequacy of the Record and Validity of the Assessor's Method.

Text: Each party claims the record is adequate to support its valuation of the Cablevision property. In addition, Cablevision argues the district court was correct in finding that the assessor's three-method correlation was improper as a matter of law. [1] Based on a de novo review of the record, we find that it is not adequate for an accurate valuation at this time. Hence, neither valuation offered by the parties can be considered reliable. The district court pointed out several problems with the record that threw the accuracy of the valuations into doubt. Though we are not bound by these findings, we give them weight. Iowa R.App.P. 14(f)(7). We think the following examples cited by the district court amply illustrate the inadequacy of the record. (1) The information on comparable sales used by Ziems contained no detail other than the sale price and the number of customers; without more, it is impossible to say just how comparable these sales were. (2) The replacement cost of Cablevision's underground wire was not available to Ziems at the time he made his assessment, nor did he have accurate information on the number of subscribers paying for extra channel services and what income they generated; both wire and subscription figures were simply estimated, and the record seems to contain only these estimations. (3) It is still unclear whether the record contains data for Fort Dodge that are segregated from data for other communities; such segregated information was definitely not available to the assessor. (4) The depreciation figures in the record do not appear to account for the abnormal functional obsolescence of Cablevision's equipment. In short, unless problems such as these are eliminated by supplementing the record, a reliable valuation cannot be made. Accordingly, we must remand this case to the district court for additional evidence that will make a reliable valuation by that court possible. See Lessenger, 258 Iowa at 175, 138 N.W.2d at 61. Finally, we must correct the district court's determination that the assessor's three-method correlation was invalid as a matter of law. The court said that it was contrary to Iowa statutory law for the assessor to have used the sale price approach along with two other factors approaches, income and replacement cost. This conclusion is erroneous. Though section 441.21 establishes the sale price approach as the primary valuation method, this statute does not prohibit the use of other factors along with sale price when data on the latter are limited. In Equitable Life Insurance Co. we said that [w]hen the other factors approach is used it is not necessary that sufficient sale[ ] price data be available upon which to determine [actual] value by use of that method alone. The other factors approach presupposes that the sale[ ] price data [are] insufficient to be relied upon as the sole basis for valuation. Only then is the other factors approach to be used. [If, however,] even one comparable sale exists, it should be considered in using the other factors approach. 281 N.W.2d at 825. This interpretation of section 441.21 emphasizes the primary nature of the sale price approach by requiring its use whenever possible. Clearly, then, the assessor's use of a three-method correlation that includes sale price is consistent with the statute, so long as the correlation is based on accurate and sufficient data. The district court erred by concluding otherwise.