Shelbyville MHPI, LLC (MHPI) appeals the final determination of the Indiana Board of Tax Review upholding the assessment of its real property for the 2006 tax year. The issue for the Court to decide is whether the Indiana Board erred in upholding the assessment. The Court affirms.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
At some point in 2004, MHPI offered to purchase the subject property, a 205-pad mobile home park situated on 51.04 acres in Shelbyville, Indiana. To facilitate the purchase, MHPI’s lender commissioned an appraisal (hereinafter “the Crown Appraisal”), which valued a portion of the park at $4.2 million.
For the 2006 tax year, the Shelby County Assessor assessed MHPI’s property at $4,988,300. MHPI appealed its assessment to the Shelby County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals (PTABOA) and based on some unspecified sales data, the PTABOA reduced MHPI’s assessment to $4,263,800.
On October 31, 2008, MHPI appealed to the Indiana Board, claiming that its assessment was still too high. On October 27, 2009, the Indiana Board held a hearing, during which both MHPI and the Assessor offered third party appraisals, completed in conformance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), to support their respective positions. MHPI’s Appraisal estimated that the market value-in-use
On March 19, 2010, MHPI initiated this original tax appeal. The Court heard oral arguments on February 18, 2011. Additional facts will be supplied as necessary.
The party seeking to overturn an Indiana Board final determination bears the burden of demonstrating its invalidity. Hubler Realty Co. v. Hendricks Cnty. Assessor,
ANALYSIS
On appeal, MHPI contends that the Indiana Board’s final determination must be reversed for two alternative reasons.
I.
A final determination of the Indiana Board is contrary to law if it violates any statute, constitutional provision, legal principle, or rule of substantive or procedural law. See John Malone Enter., Inc. v. Schaeffer,
A petitioner makes a prima facie case during the administrative hearing process when it submits evidence that is “sufficient to establish a given fact and which, if not contradicted, remains sufficient.” See Long v. Wayne Twp. Assessor,
The next issue before the Court is whether the Indiana Board’s determination that the December 2004 sales evidence was probative as to the market value-in-use of MHPI’s property is arbitrary, capricious, or not based on substantial evidence. Probative evidence is “evidence sufficient to establish a given fact that, if not contradicted, will remain sufficient.” Meadowbrook N. Apts: v. Conner,
The administrative record reveals that the manufactured home market was robust between 2004 and 2005. (See Cert. Admin. R. at 456, 463, 473-74, 497.) In fact, the market was characterized as one in which investor demand routinely outweighed supply. (See Cert. Admin. R. at 473-74, 497.) The demand for such property did not begin to decrease until 2008. (Cert. Admin. R. at 190.) MHPI purchased the mobile home park in an arm’s length transaction in December 2004 for just over $4.2 million. (See, e.g., Cert. Admin. R. at 300-01.) Furthermore, despite the imminence of Indiana’s re-trending process that required assessing officials to adjust real property assessments to reflect the six-year difference in effective valuation dates, MHPI assumed, when it purchased the property, that its assessment and associated property tax liability would remain relatively constant.
The final determination in this case reveals that the Indiana Board, as an impartial adjudicator, accepted the parties’ evi-dentiary presentations, considered and weighed their quality, and ultimately concluded that the Assessor’s evidentiary presentation corroborated the assessment, which best reflected the market value-in-use of MHPI’s mobile home park. The Court finds no basis for reversing the Indiana Board’s conclusion and, therefore, its final determination is AFFIRMED.
Notes
. The Crown Appraisal describes the subject property as a 199-pad mobile home park consisting of ± 47.7 acres. (See Cert. Admin. R. at 400-40, 530-31.)
. In 2006, Indiana’s real property assessments were to reflect a property’s market value-in-use (i.ethe value of a property "for its current use, as reflected by the utility received by the owner or a similar user, from the property”) as of January 1, 2005. See Ind.Code § 6 — 1.1—4—4.5 (2006) (amended 2009); 2002 Real Property Assessment Manual (2004 Reprint) (incorporated by reference at 50 Ind. Admin. Code 2.3-1-2 (2002 Supp.)) at 2; 50 Ind. Admin. Code 21-3-3 (2006) (see http://www.in.gov/legislative/iac).
. MHPI also complains that the Assessor’s use of the Crown Appraisal was improper and that the Appraisal lacked probative value because it was significantly flawed. (See Pet'r Br. at 7-10.) The Court, however, need not address these complaints to resolve the matter at hand.
. MHPI suggests that its misunderstanding of Indiana’s re-trending process negates the probative value of the December 2004 sales evidence. (See Pet’r Reply Br. at 5-6; Pet’r Br. at 10-12.) The Court, however, is not persuaded.
. The Indiana Board also found that MHPI’s Appraisal was deficient because "the work was done more than 4½ years after the valuation date” and it was prepared for litigation purposes. (See Cert. Admin. R. at 106-08 ¶¶ 53, 56.) These conclusions were erroneous: absent a showing of some relevant physical change in the property, the date upon which an appraisal is completed has no bearing on its probative value. Similarly, the fact that an appraisal was prepared for litigation purposes, without something more, does not render it non-probative. Nonetheless, the Court finds these errors are harmless, given