Essentials of Commercial Property Tax Disputes

In the last eighteen months, the Supreme Court of Virginia has issued two key opinions establishing fundamental principles applicable to commercial property tax disputes. Both opinions overturned approaches previously taken by circuit courts throughout Virginia, and both opinions outlined rules applicable to issues ranging from the admissibility of expert testimony to the elements that a taxpayer must prove to prevail.

While these new cases are critical, a number of historic controlling opinions remain in place. These opinions address key fundamentals of commercial property tax assessments, ranging from procedural steps taxpayers must take to properly challenge an assessment, to general principles controlling how the values underlying any given assessment should be derived. In any given case, these opinions may provide the rule of decision.

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COURSE SCHEDULE (April 6) (Eastern Time)

• Q&A will be handled via chat room for Webcast attendees.
• Q&A will be handled via e-mail for telephone seminar attendees.

COURSE SCHEDULE (May 13) (Eastern Time)

• Q&A will be handled via chat room for Webcast attendees.
• Q&A will be handled via e-mail for telephone seminar attendees.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

R. Johan Conrod Jr., Johan Conrod Law PLLC / Virginia Beach

Johan Conrod is a commercial litigator with nearly 20 years of experience in state and federal courts, at both the trial and appellate levels. A 2001 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, he has tried dozens of cases, including both jury and bench trials in the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia and numerous state circuit courts. He has argued appeals before the Supreme Court of Virginia and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Mr. Conrod has litigated commercial tax disputes in a number of courts and contexts. He has handled tax disputes before assessors, local boards of equalization, Virginia circuit courts, the State Corporation Commission, the Virginia Department of Taxation, and the Supreme Court of Virginia. His experience includes commercial properties ranging from electric generation facilities, to office and apartment complexes, to privately owned transportation facilities such as bridges and marine container terminals, to mixed use developments, all involving total tax assessments exceeding $1 billion.

Mr. Conrod is listed in Best Lawyers^® in America (2020, 2021 Antitrust), and has been recognized as a Virginia Super Lawyer and included on Virginia Business magazine’s list of Virginia’s Legal Elite. In 2018, he was the feature profile for Virginia Business’s Legal Elite issue in the appellate law category. He is a former president of the Tidewater Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and served on the editorial board of The Federal Lawyer, the national magazine of the FBA. Mr. Conrod is also the co-author of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals chapter in Appellate Practice—Virginia and Federal Courts (Virginia CLE^® 2016). In law school, he served on both the editorial and managing boards of the Virginia Law Review.