Opinion ID: 2049323
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Issue of error in assessment.

Text: The protest forms employed by taxpayers included the language 4. That there is an error in the assessent as follows:, after which taxpayers stated, 90 unit price per square foot for frontage is unrealistic, unjust and arbitrary. We doubt this is the type of error in assessment intended by the language of § 441.37(4), The Code. The assessor's cards indicate a computation of a unit price multiplied by a factor known as equivalent frontage. Taxpayers made no attempt to prove properties assigned a lower factor were comparable. They argued that another property located immediately south of their premises was permitted a frontage equivalent unit of only $70. Assuming the card on the adjoining property is properly in evidence, it indicates frontage on a different street designated as dirt, with no curb and gutter. Consideration of this issue both below and here is made more difficult by the unexplained fragmentation of taxpayers' property into three parcels for assessment purposes. There is no indication one parcel fronts on any street. It is apparent, however, that all form one tract within one city lot. The evidence further shows the total tract has a 224.58 foot frontage on an attractive paved street (John Lynde Road) in a very desirable neighborhood of older, fine homes. Under the holding in our recent cases, all three parcels and the home should be valued together as a unit. See Maytag Company v. Partridge, supra, 210 N.W.2d at 587-588; Tiffany v. County Bd. Of Rev. In And For Greene Co., supra, 188 N.W.2d at 349. And when so valued, as they were in the appeal below, there is no indication there was anything unrealistic, unjust or arbitrary in the frontage factor adopted by the assessor. We hold there was no error in the assessment of taxpayers' real estate.