Appraisal evidence

Instruction No.            

    Certain matters may be considered by a witness in forming his opinion of the fair market value of the subject property and severance damage, if any, and if evidence of such matters has been received it may be considered by you only for the limited purpose of enabling you to understand and weigh the testimony of the witnesses as to their opinion of the fair market value of the subject property and severance damage, if any.

    Among those matters are:

        (1) The area and location of the subject property; the nature of its developments; the uses for which it is adaptable and available; its proximity to nearby shopping areas and commercial facilities; the availability of utilities; the zoning of the subject property and any limitations placed upon its use by existing zoning laws.

        (2) The nature of the improvements on properties and the character of the neighborhood in the general vicinity of the subject property; the character of the existing uses being made of such properties; and the trend of land use and development in such neighborhood, if any.

         (3) The price and other circumstances of any sale or contract to sell and purchase of the subject property or of other properties which they consider to be comparable to defendant's property as shedding light on the value of the property being valued. Generally, the more similar one property is to another, the closer the value of the one may be expected to approach the value of the other. Thus, in weighing the opinion of a witness as to the value of the subject property based upon his reliance on sales or contracts to sell and purchase comparable properties, you should consider the following matters: Was such sale or contract to sell and purchase freely made in good faith; if the sale was on credit, how much should the sale price be discounted to reflect the amount for which the property would have sold for cash; how near January 4, 1994, the date of valuation of the defendant's property, is the date of the other sale; how near the size of the other property is to the size of defendants' property; how similar are the physical features, including both improvements and natural features; how similar is the use to which the other property is, or may be put, to the use which is, or may be, made of the defendants' property; how far the other property is from the defendants' property; and how similar the neighborhood of the other property is to the neighborhood of the defendants' property.

     As you have been previously instructed, you may consider evidence of any of the foregoing matters only for the purpose of enabling you to understand and weigh the testimony of the witnesses as to their opinions of market value and severance damage, if any.

BAJI 11.82 (7th ed. 1986)