Property Owner Prevails on Appeal in Eminent Domain Case After Trial Court Erroneously Excludes Expert’s Appraisal Opinion
“The expert then looked at comparable sales to assign a value to the condemned property. To adjust for differences between the Foley and comparable properties, the expert assigned values to improvements such as buildings, personal property and existing orchards, and deducted them from the sales price. He also applied qualitative factors, such as topography and soil quality, to adjust the prices. Using this methodology, Foley’s expert determined the value of the property to be $1.7 million.
The County’s expert, on the other hand, believed the highest and best use of the property was grazing land. He assigned a value of $637,000 to the property.
Moving to Section 816, the Court noted that the “essence of comparability is recent and local sales ‘sufficiently alike in respect to character, size, situation, usability, and improvements’ so that the price ‘may fairly be considered as shedding light’ on the value of the condemned property.” Thus, the role of the trial court under Section 816 is limited to determining whether the sales price of the other property can shed light on the condemned property’s value regardless of the differences between them.”
Hinks, Mathew. California Land Use Blog 9 January 2013.