Article on Facade Easements

Wendy C. Gerzog (Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law) recently published her article entitled, Facade Easement: Inexpert Valuation, Tax Notes, Vol. 136, No. 2, 2012.  The abstract available on SSRN is below:

The article discusses the recent Dunlap decision, which involved facade easement transfers to the National Architectural Trust, a qualified charity that preserves building easements across the country, although most are in New York City. Although allowing a deduction for their cash contributions to NAT to enforce the easement and not finding any penalties applicable, the Tax Court held that despite two valuation reports written by accepted valuation experts, the taxpayers had not established any value for their easement.