IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 25-2053
Filed October 21, 2026
Von Maur, Inc.,
Plaintiff–Appellant,
v.
Dallas County Board of Review,
Defendant–Appellee.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dallas County,
The Honorable Michael Jacobsen, Judge.
AFFIRMED
Richard A. Davidson of Lane & Waterman LLP, Davenport, attorney for
appellant.
Jamie L. Cox and Paul S. Wilson of Willson & Pechacek, P.L.C., Council
Bluffs, attorneys for appellee.
Considered without oral argument
by Tabor, C.J., and Chicchelly and Sandy, JJ.
Opinion by Tabor, C.J.
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TABOR, Chief Judge.
Taxpayer Von Maur, Inc. contests the Dallas County Assessor’s
valuation of its Jordan Creek Mall department store for tax years 2023 and 2024. The assessor valued the real estate at $16,046,520 for both years. The district court adopted that market value. Relying on its own expert, the taxpayer contends the property is worth only $12,300,000.
In our independent determination, we do not find the assessments were excessive. We affirm.
I. Facts and Prior Proceedings
The Von Maur department store is one of four “anchor” retailers at the Jordan Creek Town Center. 1 In appraisal terms, Jordan Creek is considered “a super-regional mall.” Von Maur covers 152,000 square feet of the mall, and the leased site is 12.51 acres.
Another department store, Younkers, built the two-story structure in 2004 and occupied that location until going out of business in 2018. The mall owners bought the property from Younkers and leased it to Von Maur in 2019. Von Maur did renovations before opening in 2022.
At issue are Von Maur’s property tax assessments for the two years after its opening. For both 2023 and 2024, the county assessor appraised the land at $4,359,490 and the improvements at $11,687,030 for a total value of $16,046,520. Von Maur protested to the board of review, alleging in its petitions that the property was “assessed for more than the value authorized
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Von Maur’s appraiser described it as an “upscale” retailer unlike a “discount department store” like Walmart. The other three anchors are Dillard’s, Scheels, and Century Theaters.
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by law.” For 2023, Von Maur’s petition alleged the actual value was $7,800,000. For 2024, the petition alleged the actual value was $0. The board of review upheld the assessments. Von Maur then appealed to the district court, which granted the parties’ request to consolidate the appeals.
Both sides hired experts for the district court hearing. The Dallas County Board of Review offered the opinions of veteran real estate appraiser Mark Kenney. Von Maur countered with the opinions of appraiser Chris Jenkins, who also had decades of experience in commercial appraisals for retail property.
In his testimony for the board of review, Kenney rated Von Maur’s location as “excellent” and described it as “the premier retail location in the state.” But he also acknowledged “department stores aren’t what they used to be” in this era of online shopping. Yet despite recognizing the store’s external obsolescence, Kenney valued the Von Maur property at $17,800,000 for 2023 and $18,000,000 for 2024.
Jenkins offered a different view on behalf of Von Maur. Citing high inflation and climbing interest rates in 2023, Jenkins noted a downward trend in the value of large retail stores. In his opinion, the value of the property was considerably lower: $12,300,000 for 2023 and $11,700,000 in 2024.
After hearing testimony from the two experts, the district court decided Kenney “provided the more credible and persuasive analysis as to the subject property’s actual market value.” The court found that Kenney “correctly looked at similar sale-leaseback transactions and made adjustments taking into account market conditions.” From there, the court upheld the board of review’s property tax assessments for both years.
Von Maur appeals the district court’s ruling.
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II. Scope and Standard of Review
We review Von Maur’s tax protest de novo. See Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Polk Cnty. Bd. of Rev., 983 N.W.2d 37, 42 (Iowa 2022). Although the district court’s findings of fact are not binding on us, we give them weight and are “especially deferential” to the court’s determinations on witness credibility. Id.; see also Payton Apartments, Ltd. v. Bd. of Rev. of City of Des Moines, 358 N.W.2d 325, 329 (Iowa Ct. App. 1984) (giving weight to district court’s decision on expert witness credibility even in a de novo review).
Weighing the credibility of competing expert opinions differs from deciding whether the witnesses are telling the truth. True, “[e]xperts, like other humans, have been known to lie.” Banwart v. Neurosurgery of N. Iowa, P.C., 18 N.W.3d 267, 275 (Iowa 2025) (providing example of expert lying about credentials). This case involves good faith, yet varying, appraisals from the parties’ experts. When faced with conflicting appraisal testimony, “a court must necessarily assign weight to the opinion testimony received based on its view of the qualifications and credibility of the parties’ expert witnesses.” In re Smith, 267 B.R. 568, 572 (Bankr. S.D. Ohio 2001).
[V]aluation is ultimately the opinion of a particular appraiser and, as such,
the weight to be accorded the opinion rests upon a number of factors
frequently used by courts in evaluating appraisal testimony[, including]:
the appraiser’s education, training, experience, familiarity with the subject
of the appraisal, manner of conducting the appraisal, testimony on direct
examination, testimony on cross-examination, and overall ability to
substantiate the basis for the valuation presented.
In re Buckland, 123 B.R. 573, 578 (Bankr. S.D. Ohio 1991).
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III. Analysis
To aid our analysis, we survey the legal principles governing property tax challenges.
A. Taxpayer’s Protest
An aggrieved taxpayer dissatisfied with the county’s property
assessment may petition the board of review alleging one of the statutory grounds in Iowa Code section 441.37(1)(a)(1) (2024). The ground alleged by Von Maur is found in paragraph (b): “[T]he property is assessed for more than the value authorized by law.”
When the board of review declined to reduce the assessment, Von
Maur appealed to the district court, which sits in equity to “determine anew all questions arising before the board of review” that relate to the amount of the assessment. Iowa Code § 441.38(3). In that review, the district court must consider “all of the evidence” and cannot presume that the valuation being appealed is correct. Id.
Von Maur claims that the district court did not comply with the
directives in section 441.38(3) when deciding the value of the anchor store. In Von Maur’s view, the district court “rubber stamped” the appraisal from Kenney, the board’s expert. The taxpayer complains that the district court’s statements endorsing Kenney’s credibility were too conclusory to comply with the code. Von Maur also insists that the court failed to discuss whether it used the comparable sales approach or looked to “other factors” in determining the store’s value.
We reject Von Maur’s attack on the district court’s reasoning. Nothing in the ruling suggests that the court presumed the correctness of the assessor’s valuation. In fact, the court spent twenty pages detailing the
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approaches and opinions of the two battling experts. True, the court devoted far less space to its conclusion that Kenney was the more credible expert. But its bottom line was unmistakable; after considering “the totality of the record presented,” the district court found Kenney’s methods and analysis to be more persuasive and credited his appraisal over the valuations offered by Von Maur’s expert. The ruling complied with section 441.38(3).
B. Burden Shifting
The taxpayer generally bears the burden to prove an assessment is excessive. Iowa Code § 441.21(3)(b)(2). But if the taxpayer “offers competent evidence that the market value of the property is different than the market value determined by the assessor, the burden of proof thereafter shall be upon the officials or persons seeking to uphold such valuation to be assessed.” Id. § 441.21(3)(b)(1).2 Evidence is competent “when it complies with the statutory scheme for property valuation.” Compiano v. Polk Co. Bd. of Rev., 771 N.W.2d 392, 398 (Iowa 2009) (cleaned up).
Von Maur asserts that Jenkins’s appraisal “fits the bill” to shift the burden of proof to the board. The board does not dispute that assertion but maintains that “the district court correctly applied the burden shifting analysis.” We agree that the district court properly recognized that the burden rested with the board to uphold the county’s assessment.
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The code previously required competent evidence from at least “two disinterested witnesses” contesting the market value of the property. See Iowa Code § 441.21(3)(b)(1) (2017). But in 2017, the legislature removed that requirement for assessment years starting in 2018. 2017 Iowa Acts ch. 151, § 8.
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C. Actual Value
“All property subject to taxation shall be valued at its actual
value . . . .” Iowa Code § 441.21(1)(a). Actual value means “the fair and reasonable market value of such property.” Id. § 441.21(1)(b)(1). The code defines “market value” as “the fair and reasonable exchange in the year in which the property is listed and valued between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or sell and each being familiar with all the facts relating to the particular property.” Id.
Section 441.21 describes two approaches for assessing a property’s market value: the “comparable sales” approach and the “other factors” approach. See Compiano, 771 N.W.2d at 396. The code’s preferred valuation method is the comparable-sales approach—which seeks to determine market value by reference to actual sales of similar properties. Iowa Code § 441.21(1)(b)(1) (“Sale prices of the property or comparable property in normal transactions reflecting market value . . . shall be taken into consideration in arriving at its market value.”). But if market value “cannot be readily established” through the comparable-sales method, then assessors may rely on “other uniform and recognized appraisal methods,” including income-capitalization and cost analyses. Id. § 441.21(2). Here, both experts started with the comparable-sales approach; they also used other approaches and then gave the sale comparisons the most weight in determining value.
But Von Maur claims that when performing his appraisal, despite
certifying his compliance, Kenney did not follow the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). 3 Rather, in Von Maur’s view,
3
All appraisers performing services regulated by the real estate appraiser examining board must comply with the USPAP. Iowa Admin. Code r. 481-2035.1(3). But the administrative code does not list the specific USPAP standards. And we have declined
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Kenney was pushing the agenda of the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO), a “trade organization” for government assessors. Von Maur claims that the flawed theories that Kenney offered from the IAAO tainted his entire appraisal report. The board responds that appraisers must resolve any conflicts between industry standards and Iowa law in favor of Iowa law and that Kenney did so in appraising the property at issue. The board also faulted Jenkins, the taxpayer’s expert, for using comparable sale properties “with artificially low sale prices” and for making “inconsistent and questionable adjustments.”
While competing industry standards may have influenced the
methodology of both appraisers, we focus on whether the board satisfied its burden of proof to uphold the assessments at issue. Von Maur argues that the board failed to meet its burden because Kenney’s appraisal violated Iowa law in three ways: (1) he applied a faulty definition of a fee simple property interest; (2) he did not value the property according to its present use; and (3) he made unreliable adjustments to the sales of three comparable properties to account for the fact that they involved lease-fee rather than feesimple sales. We consider each of those complaints in turn.
i. Fee simple interest
The parties agree that the real estate should be appraised “free of all encumbrances, including leases.” See I.C.M. Realty v. Woodward, 433 N.W.2d 760, 762 (Iowa Ct. App. 1988) (“[T]he proper measure of value is what the property would bring if sold in fee simple free and clear of any leases.”). But
to take judicial notice of those standards. RV Cent. v. Plaats, No. 19-1812, 2020 WL 4197758, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. July 22, 2020). So without going outside the record on appeal, we cannot evaluate Von Maur’s claim concerning Kenney’s compliance with the USPAP.
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they disagree whether Kenney impermissibly strayed from the definition of fee simple by assuming the Von Maur property was “leased at market rates” at the time of valuation. Von Maur insists Kenney undermined his own report by determining the value of the property as if it were leased rather than cabining the valuation to how much a willing buyer would pay for the property free of any leases. See Merle Hay Mall v. City of Des Moines Bd. of Rev., 564 N.W.2d 419, 422 (Iowa 1997) (rejecting mall owner’s argument that unfavorable lease should be considered as part of income-capitalization approach to valuation).
We reject Von Maur’s position. When property is subject to a lease, an appraiser may make an adjustment to reflect the effect of the lease on the value of the property. See Soifer v. Floyd Cnty. Bd. of Rev., 759 N.W.2d 775, 783 (Iowa 2009) (“When sales of other properties are admitted, the market value of the assessed property must be adjusted to account for differences between the comparable property and the assessed property to the extent any differences would distort the market value of the assessed property in the absence of such adjustments.”); I.C.M. Realty, 433 N.W.2d at 762 (noting that while property should be valued as if free and clear of any leases, the evidence of leases is a factor that may be used to determine the value of the property without the leases).
ii. Present Use
Von Maur next argues that, despite professing to do so, Kenney did not appraise the property based on its present use as “an anchor department store at a super-regional shopping mall.” The taxpayer points to Kenney’s reliance on comparable sales of properties as disparate as “a furniture store, farm supply stores, a hobby store, and big box discount stores.” Von Maur accuses Kenney of using “comparable sales of other retail uses because he
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knows a department store value will never be high enough to support the assessor’s value.”
We find this argument unpersuasive for two reasons. First, a
comparable sale should be similar but need not be identical. Wellmark, Inc. v. Polk Cnty. Bd. of Rev., 875 N.W.2d 667, 681 (Iowa 2016). “Similar means having a resemblance, and properties may be similar even though they have some different characteristics.” Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Sieren, 460 N.W.2d 887, 890 (Iowa Ct. App. 1990). Second, many of the varied retail properties referenced by Kenney also appeared on Jenkins’s list of comparable sales. Kenney’s appraisal did not ignore Von Maur’s current use of the department store.
iii. Lease-Fee Sales
Related to its other complaints, Von Maur criticizes Kenney’s method of adjusting the value of his comparable-sale properties based on lease-fee sales rather than fee-simple sales. The taxpayer contends that Kenney failed to “properly adjust his comparable sales for the long-term sale-leaseback transactions that taint sales.”
But as the district court noted, “comparable sales are not necessarily excluded from consideration simply because they involve sale-leasebacks, if appropriate adjustments are made to reflect the value of the fee simple interest of the owner.” See HyVee v. Dallas Cnty. Bd. of Review, No. 13-1377, 2014 WL 4937892, at *2 n.3,*5 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 1, 2014) (finding that assessor who adjusted for present use with comparable sale-leaseback transactions “most accurately assessed the value of the property at issue”). We agree with the district court that Kenney’s adjustments properly took into account market conditions.
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Finally, we address Von Maur’s argument that “department store
comparable sales are the best indication of value” for this anchor store. The taxpayer points to three properties from Jenkins’s appraisal and four from Kenney’s report to show that the pre-adjustment price per square foot averaged about $85 for both experts. Von Maur seizes on that figure to advocate for its overall valuation of $12,300,000.
The board pushes back on that figure, recounting that Von Maur paid at least $10,000,000 in renovations to the real estate in 2021 and 2022. We agree that the costs of the improvements added value to the real estate. See Wellmark, 875 N.W.2d at 683 (finding it ironic that taxpayer “having expended more than $150 million on its new corporate headquarters, now urges that the property is worth less than half of that amount for tax purposes”).
We reject any remaining arguments advanced by the taxpayer, whether stated expressly or not. And based on our de novo review of the record, we affirm the board’s assessment of $16,046,520 for both tax years.
AFFIRMED.
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