Villa San Clemente v. County of Orange
Plaintiff Villa San Clemente LLC (Villa) brought suit against defendant County of Orange (the County) for a tax refund on property taxes collected on 59.168 acres of land (the property) Villa owns in Orange County after the Assessment Appeals Board No. 1 (assessment appeals board, or board) assessed the property at $78,547,385. The assessor’s expert and Villa’s expert both used the same method of assessing the value of the property, comparable sales, but arrived at different results. The trial court denied Villa relief on two of its arguments, but remanded the matter to the board to consider Villa’s claim that construction costs for building a bridge on the property and a freeway off-ramp, as well as certain other costs of developing the property, reduce the valuation of the property. Villa appeals, contending the assessor’s method of assessing the value of the property was flawed in that certain downward adjustments were required, but not made, and a portion of the expense of building a mandated parking structure should have been deducted.
The trial court awarded Villa $70,806.71 in attorney fees under Revenue and Taxation Code section 1611.6.[1] The County cross-appealed, contending the court should have awarded substantially less.
For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment and the order awarding Villa $70,806.71 of the requested $108,453.75 in attorney fees.
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