Alan and Julie Gentzes of Sterling, Colo., filed a lawsuit in the 13th Judicial District Court against Mark Weston, a land appraiser and one-time member of the state’s Conservation Easement Oversight Commission. The Gentzes claim that Weston essentially double-crossed them, charging them for advice on how to file for conservation easements on some of their land at the northwest edge of Sterling, and later voting to reject the appraisals and retroactively deny the tax credits they’d claimed for those easements.
The Gentzes, according to the Journal Advocate, already are fighting with the Colorado Department of Revenue over more than $700,000 in denied tax credits, penalties, and interest the state says the couple owes. The state rejected an appraisal of the Gentzes’ land after the couple had claimed tax credits in 2006 and 2007 for enrolling some of their land in Colorado’s Conservation Easement program. The Gentzes also are claiming Weston is partly responsible for that.
The Gentzes claim that in May 2004, Weston, a partner in Hunsperger & Weston, Ltd., of Greenwood Village, examined their property and recognized that the land the couple wanted to set aside for the conservation easement had “significant development potential.” He further observed that the value of the land would be dramatically diminished if they proceeded with the easement.
In fact, Weston wrote a letter to Legendary Properties in Longmont saying the Logan County Commissioners assured him that the Gentz property had been judged to be highly desirable for upscale residential development.
“Because of this significant development potential, encumbering the property with a conservation easement is likely to reduce its fair market value,” Weston's letter said.
Weston also explained that one expected consequence of the conservation easement would be a tax credit from Colorado Department of Revenue and a tax deduction from the federal Internal Revenue Service.
“The value of the easement normally is the difference in the value of the property before and after conveyance of the conservation easement,” Weston wrote.
“This was all part of our research in learning about development and conservation easements,” Alan Gentz said. “I think Mark Weston’s letter said that our property had significant residential development potential.”
That development potential is key to the property appraisals the Gentzes would have done. Weston did caution that a qualified appraiser would need to perform a detailed appraisal of the land to determine just how much the easement would reduce the property’s value, and he offered to do that appraisal for $20,000.
The Gentzes, having already paid $2,500 for Weston's preliminary assessment, declined the offer. They hired instead John Stewart of Loveland, who turned in a 200-page appraisal for about half of what Weston would have charged. It was the first of five appraisals the couple would have done on their property, and all of the appraisals returned similar valuations.