Southern Westchester Associates v. Assessor of City of Yonkers, 122 A.D.2d 212 (2d Dep’t 1986)

Tax Certiorari & Condemnation – Appellate Practice – Cooperative Apartment Conversion Valued By Imputing Rental Value

Tax Certiorari and Condemnation cases almost always involve the use of experts to establish value. Here, Stephen Davis successfully used an expert to establish rental value for apartments in a cooperative apartment buildling conversion as part of the capitalization of income process. At the taxpayer’s behest, the court applied a remedial statute designed to avoid use of sales prices for each unit, the effect of which would make the sum of the parts worth more than the whole, i.e., worth more than a neighboring similar apartment building. Instead, the rental value, rather than the so-called conversion value, was considered to be the best measure of value. Then, Steve convinced the Appellate Division to affirm the lower court ruling.