Petitioner contests Hernando County appraisal for Spring Hill Lamson Avenue office, argues comparables are outliers

Colleen Millett, special magistrate, heard testimony Friday in Hernando County on petition number 25-002, in which Deborah Paracone and her representative, John J. Franklin Jr., challenged the property appraiser's valuation of a commercial building on Lamson Avenue in Spring Hill.

The petitioner argued the appraiser's sales-comparison evidence was unreliable. "None of these are actual comparables," John J. Franklin Jr. said during his presentation, describing differences in use, interior build-outs and recent sale conditions for the comparables the appraiser used. Deborah Paracone said she had been offered about $850,000 for the property in the last year and noted recent sales in the area she called anomalous; she also said, "Last year, we paid over $36,000 in taxes."

Representatives of the Hernando County Property Appraiser's Office presented a packet showing a sales-comparison and cost analysis. The appraiser's packet listed a subject record (key number 620466) and described the building as a one-story office with about 4,770 leasable square feet and 21,360 square feet of land. The property appraiser's materials showed a listed just value figure in the packet ($1,289,142) and described a sales-comparison-derived adjusted figure of about $1,526,400 that, after a 15% cost-of-sale adjustment, produced an indicated value near $1,297,000. The packet also listed assessed/taxable values in its record card.

Petitioner counsel objected to the choice of comparables and presented a different set of nearby sales they said were more similar in size and interior finish. Franklin pointed to a nearby sale he said was excluded from the appraiser's analysis despite being closer in size and builder. Appraiser staff responded that the office followed Department of Revenue guidelines for inclusion of sales and made location, age and condition adjustments; they said some sales were excluded because of size differences or because they were outside the intended leasable-square-foot window for comparables.

Magistrate Millett admitted both parties' packets into the hearing record and said she would consider all evidence and make a recommended decision to the Value Adjustment Board within a few weeks. No formal decision was issued at the hearing.

The hearing transcript shows detailed back-and-forth over which recent sales are appropriate comparables and differing calculations of adjusted per-square-foot values. The magistrate concluded the session after admitting both sides' materials for review and said she would prepare a written recommendation to the Value Adjustment Board.