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B. Expert Reports
Both parties rely on expert appraisals of the Canal.
Respondent’s expert, Felecia Coleman (respondent’s expert),
considered the 4.75-acre Canal to be solely land under water.
She used a comparable sales approach to value the Canal, under
which she attempted to estimate the value of the Canal based on
the sales prices of similar properties. Since she could find no
sales of manmade canals, respondent’s expert used ponds as the
best available comparables. Also, because there were no sales of
ponds in the vicinity close to the time of the contribution of
the Canal, she estimated the value of the ponds of comparable
size in the area using their assessed values for local property
tax purposes. On the basis of her experience in real estate, she
concluded that such assessed values were typically 80 percent of
fair market value, and respondent introduced statistics
supporting this ratio for nonresidential, nonagricultural real
property in Clarendon County. Since the tax-assessed value for
similarly sized ponds in the area was $1,000 per acre,
respondent’s expert used a figure of $1,250 per acre as the
estimated fair market value of the ponds. On the basis of that
figure, she estimated the Canal’s value at $5,937.50 (4.75 acres
times $1,250), which she rounded to $5,950.
Petitioners’ expert, Theodore B. Gardner (petitioners’
expert), treated the 4.75-acre Canal as comprising three
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Last modified: May 25, 2011