Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: November 14, 2019

FILE NO.: RD 2019M24

Assessed Person(s): Christopher Lore and Patricia Mary Lore

Appellant(s): Christopher Lore

Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) Region 15

Respondent(s): Town of Oakville

Property Location(s): 223 Westdale Road

Municipality(ies): Town of Oakville

Roll Number(s): 2401-020-010-13800-0000

Appeal Number(s): 3259846 and 3307189

Taxation Year(s): 2017 and 2018

Hearing Event No.: 694384 and 701902

Legislative Authority: Rule 123 of the Assessment Review Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, as amended

Request for: A review of the Board’s Decision WR 154597 issued on December 19, 2018

Heard: By written submission

Parties	Counsel+/Representative	Submissions
Christopher Lore	Robert Baranowski	Requester
MPAC	Terence Johnston, Donald G. Mitchell+	Not Received
Town of Oakville		Not Received

DECISION DELIVERED BY PAUL MULDOON AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

INTRODUCTION

1Christopher Lore (“Requester”) requests a review of the Assessment Review Board’s (“Board”) decision issued on December 19, 2018 (“Decision”), where the Presiding Members confirmed an assessment of $1,227,000 for the subject property for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years.

2The Requester submits that the Board made errors of fact and law in determining current value and equity, which, if they had not occurred would likely have led the Member to reach a different conclusion.

3First, the Requester submits that the Board committed an error in law in determining current value as determined by comparable properties (231 Westdale Road), by creating their own evidence, making presumptions not supported by evidence, and presented an unsupported opinion in written reasons.

4Secondly, the Requester submits that the Board made an error in law and fact in finding that one of the comparable properties (1021 Westdale Road) used to determine current value was a land value sale; and made further errors with respect to the effective and actual lot size of this property, such that it should not have been included as a comparable property.

5Finally, the Requester submits that the Board made an error in its equity determinations by accepting MPAC’s equity analysis based on 30 properties as comparable and similar, without evidence of similarity.

6The Presiding Members, in determining the current value of the Subject Property, relied on the direct comparison approach and used the properties that were found to be most comparable to the subject property to arrive at a current value of $1,599,000. The Board made a reduction for equity by a factor of 0.945 for a value of $1,551,000, but confirmed MPAC’s returned assessment of $1,227,000 as no party sought a higher assessment.

7The Requester ask the Board to cancel the decision and confirm an adjustment for equity and confirm an assessment of $1,079,000 for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years or, in the alternative, that the Board order a rehearing of the matter.

8For the reasons that follow, the Board finds that the Requester did not meet the threshold for review required under Rule 121(b) and should be dismissed

RELEVANT RULES

9The grounds for a Request for Review are set out in Rule 121 of the Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Rules”). A Request for Review will not be granted unless the Board is satisfied that one of the criteria in Rule 121 are met. Rule 121 states as follows:

Grounds for Review

121. A request for review will not be granted unless the Board is satisfied that:

(a) the Board acted outside its jurisdiction or violated the rules of natural justice or procedural fairness;

(b) the Board made a significant error of law or fact such that the Board would likely have reached a different decision;

(c) the Board heard false or misleading evidence from a party or witness, which was discovered only after the hearing and would have affected the result;

(d) there is new evidence that could not have reasonably been obtained earlier and would have affected the result; or

(e) any of the situations in Rule 122 exist.

The Requesters are relying on grounds (a) and (b) as noted above.

ANALYSIS

Issue: Comparable Properties – 231 Westdale Road and 1021 Westdale Road

10The Requester’s claim that the Board created its own evidence, made presumptions not supported by evidence and presented unsupported opinions with respect to how it arrived at current value based on the comparable properties is not made out. The Board finds that the Presiding Members did not make an error in law in determining current value based on comparable properties.

11Paragraphs 28 to 34 of the Decision set out the Board’s findings with respect to analysis of comparable properties. The Decision shows that the Board considered the evidence and conducted appropriate analysis of the similarity of the proposed comparable properties, including examining lot and building size, lot location and desirability in the market place, and whether or not renovations had been made among other elements. Calculations related to the comparable properties are found in Table 1, and time adjustments were made accordingly.

12It is clear that the Presiding Members arrived at a current value of the subject property by determining which properties presented by the parties were inferior and which were superior. The Presiding Members employed the bracketing method to set a range within which the subject property would be valued. The points of comparability of properties submitted in evidence were examined, and the Presiding Members provided reasons in the decision as to where the subject property fell within the range of comparators. The basis for the Members’ finding is neither “speculative”, nor is it an “unsupported opinion” as alleged. The Board finds that there is no error in fact or law with the Decision on this point, and no error significant enough that the Board would likely have reached a different decision.

Issue: Land Value Sale – 1021 Westdale Road

13The Requester also claims that the Presiding Members made and error in law and fact in determining that the comparable property at 1021 Westdale Road was a “land value” sale based on evidence that the building on the property was demolished shortly after its sale. With respect to this issue, the Board finds that the Presiding Members did not make a significant error of law or fact with regard to the comparability of the “land value sale” such that it likely would have reached a different decision for the following reasons.

14The property at 1021 Westdale Road was used as the upper-end of the bracketed range of comparable properties along with two other properties. The Presiding Members found that the property was superior to the subject property, with a similar lot size and also backing on to green space. Although the building that had existed on it was 30% larger than the subject property, having been removed shortly after the sale, the Members concluded that similar residential land sales may be at amounts greater than $1,700,000.

15Although the Presiding Members do not go into extensive detail regarding acceptance of the sale as a land value sale, the analysis at paragraph 31 shows that the Presiding Members understood that the building on this property had been demolished shortly after its last sale date based on the testimony of the Town of Oakville’s representative. In any event, the Requester has not articulated what the error of law may be, and even if there was an error of fact in relation to the lot size of the property, it would not rise to the level of significant such that the Board would likely have reached a different decision, as required by Rule 121(b).

Equity Determinations

16The Requester submits that the Board made an error of law with respect to the properties used in the equity determination. The Board finds that the Presiding Members did not make any errors with respect to the equity analysis would not have changed the outcome of the decision.

17The Requester argues that the Board is required to compare all properties used in the equity determination in the same manner as is done for properties when determining current value, as outlined in RD 2018M16, also cited as Trimble v Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 15, 2018 CanLII 116137 (ON ARB), and Municipal Property Assessment Corporation v Loblaw Properties Ltd., 2017 ONSC 1299. While the Presiding Member in this instance found that the 30 properties selected by MPAC were similar to the subject property in terms of location, nature, and use of the properties; it appears she may not have considered all points of comparison as indicated by the aforementioned cases.

18Nevertheless, the Presiding Members chose to use MPAC’s 30 property sample analysis (with an Assessment to Sales Ratio (“ASR”) of 0.945) over the Requester’s submitted four property sample analysis (with an average ASR of 0.90), as more statistically sound due to the considerably larger sample size. The Presiding Members determined that MPAC’s model was slightly under-assessing properties in the vicinity and applied the factor of 0.945 to the determined current value of $1,599,000 for a value of $1,551,000. Applying the Requester’s ASR of 0.90 to the determined current value of $1,599,000 would have resulted in a value of $1,439,100. Both these values are higher than MPAC’s returned assessment of $1,227,000, which was confirmed by the Presiding Members in the Decision as no one had served notice to increase the assessment in accordance with the Board’s Rules. With respect to the Request for Review, the submitted errors would have not resulted in the Board likely reaching a different decision.

19Based on the reasons above, the Board finds the Requester did not meet the threshold for review required under Rule 121(b).

ORDER

1The Request for Review is dismissed.