For example, a legal easement may reduce access to a commercial property, reducing its fair-market value substantially. Without sufficient access to the property, a third-party buyer would have materially less use for the property, which would drive down its value abruptly. In this case, the property's new fair-market value, less selling expenses, could be well below its recorded cost. However, if the present value of the future cash flow that the building will produce exceeds its recorded cost, then the company would not be required to record an impairment.
In other words, recoverable value is not just fair-market value but the greater of either fair-market value or the value of continued use.
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