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Hernando County special magistrate hears Motel 6 valuation dispute
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Summary
At a Hernando County Value Adjustment Board hearing, special magistrate Richard Steeves heard evidence from Property Appraiser Daniel Scott and petitioner Russell Payne (Ryan LLC) over the 2025 assessed value for the Motel 6 at 6172 Commercial Way; the hearing closed without an on-the-spot decision.
Richard Steeves, the special magistrate appointed by the Hernando County Value Adjustment Board, presided over a hearing on petition 25-385 challenging the 2025 assessed value for the Motel 6 at 6172 Commercial Way in Spring Hill.
Property Appraiser Daniel Scott presented an evidence packet describing the site (key number 1327166), owned by Spring Hill Hotel LLC, noting a land area roughly 9.7 acres, building area and leasable square footage, original construction in 1966 with an effective age of 1986, and a highest-and-best-use finding of a hotel. Scott read the appraisal workpapers, including Marshall & Swift cost tables, aerials and sketches, and a cap-rate study used to support the office’s valuations.
Scott described both cost and income approaches. On the cost approach he reported depreciation calculations and an indicated improvement value; after land and adjustments he identified higher pre-adjustment totals and a cost-of-sale adjustment used in the office’s reconciliation. On the income approach he said the office blended limited motel income actuals with market data, applied a 30% vacancy and an expense package that differed in part from the petitioner’s reported expenses, and used a 9.25% cap rate described as conservative given the local market data and comparisons to metropolitan cap rates. Scott also said Motel 6 did not timely provide income returns to the Property Appraiser’s Office and argued that, "per Florida case law, it is inappropriate to provide your income after TRIM to the Property Appraiser's Office," which limited the office’s reliance on the income approach for mass appraisal.
Petitioner Russell Payne of Ryan LLC told the magistrate he had submitted the property’s actual income for consideration and asked that the magistrate weigh those figures. Payne said he used an 8.5% cap rate that was not tax-loaded in his income-cap calculation and urged the magistrate to consider the actual income because "when something like this is sold, that's what the buyer is gonna look at." Payne said his submission reflected the property's reported operations and asked the magistrate to give it weight against the appraiser's mass-appraisal parameters.
Magistrate questioning and exchanges focused on technical differences: whether the cap rate should be tax-loaded, estimates of millage and effective cap-rate conversion, variance in reported expenses (including franchise fees and CapEx), and differing vacancy assumptions (Scott referenced a 30% vacancy used by the appraiser’s team versus a lower vacancy used by petitioner-derived figures). Scott acknowledged that some inputs were influenced by the petitioner's actuals but said differences in allowable expense items and mass-appraisal parameters explained most of the valuation gap.
The hearing concluded after closing remarks and there was no immediate ruling on the record. The magistrate indicated the parties had presented their evidence; the record closed and the magistrate will subsequently prepare the recommended disposition according to VAB procedures.
