Laws, Regulations & Annotations

M

590.0000 MINES AND MINERALS

Annotation 590.0003

590.0003 Appraisal Unit. Under Revenue and Taxation Code section 51(d), an "appraisal unit" is the unit that persons in the marketplace commonly buy and sell as a unit or that is normally valued separately. Property Tax Rule 469(c)(6) further defines "appraisal unit" within the context of mining property as "a mineral property that persons in the marketplace commonly buy and sell as a unit or that is normally valued separately." An appraisal unit may consist of multiple parcels and various types of property interests, including mining claims. Several factors should be considered when determining whether multiple parcels are to be valued as one appraisal unit. These factors include (1) the functional and economic integration of the parcels, (2) the attainment of highest and best use when the parcels are analyzed as a single unit, (3) contiguity, (4) common ownership, and (5) current or prior combined sales of the parcels. Thus, a group of fifteen unpatented mining claims were properly treated as one appraisal unit because the parcels were all contiguous, under common ownership, and had been transferred twice as one unit. C 3/26/2003.