Was the data provided to the taxpayers? As stated above, I did not question his results. But, my opinion remains, anyone who says they know that any one feature in any one transaction added a specific dollar amount is a fool and is kidding themselves or promoting the narrative they are selling. But, suckers are born every minute and some will believe anything!
Not sure if you missed it when I posted above, but there were numerous lawsuits. The issue was that the towns wanted to capture the value they believed they missed with a standard mass appraisal model. In NH, like all the New England states, fee simple, retrospective values at highest and best use are developed as assessments using mass appraisal methods.
In those states, properties are valued for assessment by property type strata at the town level. Mobile homes are a strata generally. Single-family are a strata. And so on. Maybe five total strata in a small town; more in a city.
The issue came up because the non-view residential properties were holding down the assessments for view properties because all the SFR were assessed together.
Mr. Roberge built a regional assessing firm that assesses probably 75 towns in NH. Most are small, rural, and in the mountains. So, he built a model that captured the contributory value of views. That model was tested extensively at the BTLA. The risk to the towns was enormous. If the taxpayers prevailed or if the BTLA found Mr. Roberge's methodology, analysis, or conclusions to be flawed, the BTLA could order a town-wide reassessment in an off-year. The towns certainly would not have that fee already budgeted so town finances were very much at risk.
Taxpayers had access to every discovery tool and used those tools. Trial lawyers made lots of money. In the end, the BTLA was convinced by Mr. Roberge's method, analysis, and conclusions. To this day, his method stands and no law has been passed in NH to ban his practice.
So, again, Mr. Roberge had the data. You don't. I will stick with Mr. Roberge.
