Easter v. DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE CITY

⁵⁴⁹ Per Curiam. When the Department of Assessments (appellee-assessor) assessed the properties of Andrew J. Easter (appellant-taxpayer) on Belair Road and Cedonia Avenue in Baltimore City for the year 1961, the taxpayer, claiming that the assessments were erroneous or illegal, resorted to the several appellate procedures available to aggrieved taxpayers. The appeal came to this Court from the Baltimore City Court under the provisions of Code (1957), Art. 81, § 259. The case went to the lower court as six appeals (Nos. 61 through 66) in one transcript from the Maryland Tax Court after that body affirmed the finding of the Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals to the effect that the assessments made by the assessors were not unreasonable.

The principal contentions of the appellant in the lower court, as well as in the tax court, were that the assessments were excessive and failed to take into account comparable assessments of other property in the neighborhood. Inasmuch as no additional testimony was offered in the lower court by either party, the court, having afforded the contending parties ample opportunity to be heard, decided the case on the record of the proceedings made in the tax court. In so doing, the lower court considered each appeal separately and made a finding in each case. The appeal to this Court challenges the correctness of the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the Baltimore City Court.

With respect to 6427 Cedonia Avenue (Appeal No. 61) and 6431-33 Cedonia Avenue (Appeal No. 62), both of which are unimproved lots assessed at $700 and $1,400, respectively, and as to 6420 Belair Road (Appeal No. 63), which is improved by a tavern and a dwelling assessed at $9,000, the lower court found that these assessments were reasonable in that they were in line with the assessed value of other property in the vicinity. As there was no showing of error in these findings, we must affirm. Maryland Rule 886 a. The taxpayer protested the assessment of 6422-26 Belair Road (Appeal No. 64), an unimproved parcel of land, assessed on a front foot basis at $5,180, because he believed that ⁵⁵⁰ the property, from which he derived no income, should not have been assessed as high as an adjacent income-producing used car lot.

But the court, in finding that vacancy in and of itself did not affect the valuation for tax purposes, further found that the income-producing possibility was the controlling factor. Code (1961 Cum. Supp.), Art. 81, § 14 (b) (1), requires that property shall be assessed at “full cash value,” and, since the lower court found no reason to require a reduction of the assessment, we cannot, in the absence of an affirmative showing of error,