Mar-a-Lago worth 1. 5 billion?

Composite image, White House picture of President Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago
Composite image, White House picture of President Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago
© provided by RawStory
Columnist David Frum pointed out a Palm Beach Daily News report about Donald Trump's property taxes that showed him trying to claim the value of Mar-a-Lago in 2020 was less than $26.6 million.

As of Tuesday, the former president's son Eric Trump said publicly that it was actually worth more than $1 billion – a post his father later shared on his personal social media accounts. And a civil court in New York overseeing a fraud trial heard that Trump claimed the estate was actually worth $1.5 billion as he tried to secure loans.


The Palm Beach report explained that a notice was mailed out across the county telling owners the official values assessed for their properties. Those figures would then be used for their tax bills. The property owners would then have 25 days to appeal the assessment.

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"Tax representatives at Marvin F. Poer & Co., acting on behalf of Trump’s property ownership entities, filed petitions this year to the state-authorized Value Adjustment Board challenging the valuations assigned to Mar-a-Lago and the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, according to a spokeswoman for the county appraiser’s office," said the report.

"The petition for the Jupiter property was subsequently withdrawn, said agency spokeswoman Becky Robinson. A virtual hearing has been scheduled Dec. 3 to consider Mar-a-Lago’s valuation, which at $26.6 million is unchanged," from the previous year.
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Trump disputed the value of Mar-a-Lago at $26.6 million.

"'In conversations with the Trump (tax) representative, we’re thinking the Mar-a-Lago one will be withdrawn, too,' before the hearing date," Robinson told the paper in 2020.

The report claimed that the latest (2020) "total market value" of Trump-related properties in the entire U.S. is $80.792 million. Of that, records show $80.785 million is "taxable value."

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"In addition to Mar-a-Lago, the other Trump-controlled properties in the town of Palm Beach include the three houses next door to the club and a couple of adjacent lots," the report explained. "Those properties have a total taxable value of about $28.03 million, up from last year’s total of $27.16 million."

Using the "income approach" formula, the Trump club near West Palm Beach is only taxable using the clubhouse, according to contracts Trump negotiated with the county. The club leases the land or the golf course for more than $1 million annually. Trump owns the clubhouse, taxed at $166,303 in 2020 for a value of $9.48 million. The prior year the taxes were a little over $165,000.


Wayfair
"At the golf club in Jupiter, taxes billed this year for the property’s multiple parcels tally $338,450, up from last year’s total of $336,430," cited the report. "The clubhouse's taxable value is about $13.06 million, while the value of the golf course land and a service building total about $3.62 million."

The report concludes that, while Mar-a-Lago is valuable, it doesn't come close to $1 billion and neither does Trump's total assets.

Read the full report.

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Trump Increases Mar-a-Lago Value Hours After Judge Rules Against Him
Story by Katherine Fung •
09/27/23


Former President Donald Trump looks on during the pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational - Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club on August 10, 2023 in Bedminster, New Jersey.
© Mike Stobe/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump bumped up the worth of Mar-a-Lago in the wake of a new court ruling that accused him of inflating the value of his Florida property, claiming that it was "100 times" the amount that a judge said it was in the fraud case concerning him, his sons and the Trump organization.

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In a Tuesday order, New York Judge Arthur Engoron agreed with prosecutors that the defendants overvalued their properties by more than $400 million and found that "A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud."

The ruling sparked outrage from the Trump family, who have accused Engoron of launching a "radical attack" that was politically motivated. The former president himself used the valuation as an "example" of his claims, writing on Truth Social that "this Democrat Operative valued Mar-a-Lago, the most spectacular and valuable property in Palm Beach, Florida, to be worth as low as $18 million, when in actuality, it could be worth almost 100 times that amount."

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During his April 2022 testimony, Trump told prosecutors that Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.5 billion based on "broker talk," explaining that he's never put the property up for sale.

Another reason that Trump believes his property is worth significantly more than what the Palm Beach County assessor appraised it at—between $18 million and $27.6 million—could be due to a disclaimer on property appraisals that Trump's attorney Chris Kise told Newsweek the legal team tried to challenge.
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"The governing accounting standards also did not require reliance on that appraisal or any other," Kise said.

According to the Palm Beach County website, "The estimate of Total Market Value is for tax assessment purposes only and takes into consideration each of the factors enumerated in Section 193.011F.S. The Total Market Value estimate may be less than the actual market value of the property."

Under the Florida statute, in assessments, property appraisers are required to factor in the present cash value of the property; the highest and best use of the property, which includes judicial limitations, land use regulations, historic preservation ordinance and zoning changes; property location, property size, property and future replacement costs, condition of the property, income from the property and net proceeds of the sale of the property.

"Mar-a-Lago is speculated to be worth well over a billion dollars making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country. It is all so corrupt and coordinated," the former president's son, Eric Trump wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The younger Trump also posted a listing of other Palm Beach properties with values of over $35 million, saying, "These homes are about 1/30 the size of Mar-a-Lago, not on the beach (let alone the beach and intercostal), don't span from one side of the Palm Beach Island to the other...it is a travesty of justice and embarrassment to the court."

Kise echoed those remarks, saying that it is "patently absurd" to value Mar-a-Lago at $18 million to $27 million given the prices for a single vacant or undeveloped acre of a beachfront lot in Palm Beach, which is valued by Property Shark as being worth several million.

"Mar-a-Lago is 17+ acres," Kise said.

Trump himself also fought back on the valuations during his testimony.

Speaking of his financial statements, the former president said, "When you open it up, the first thing you see and the first thing you read is this clause that goes on to tell you that—that you shouldn't rely on the statement."

"Remember you have a disclaimer clause that everything we're saying is supposed to go out and get your own appraisal," he added. "You're supposed to do—you're supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever. So [that's] why it's very unfair."