Tax Assessments Stir Emotions

There have been some strong emotions over the new tax assessments, which arrived in owners' mail boxes a couple of weeks ago. Warren County likes to do things differently - unlike most counties, real estate taxes are paid annually in arrears as one lump sum, and values are only reassessed every four years. Also unlike most other counties, it has previously not made much of an attempt to get close to market value, so owners have become used to seeing tax assessments way below their property's true worth.

Suddenly however, the numbers hitting people in the face really are market value - and in some cases higher (much of the work was done earlier, before the drop in prices over the summer and fall). I have had a lot of calls and emails from past clients, asking for help with 'comps' as they want to appeal their assessment. It's strange how most people think their home is worth more than it is when they want to sell, but feel the value has been over-stated when they get a tax assessment :)

But it really doesn't matter as long as everyone is being treated equally with a 'level playing field'. It seems that assessments have increased on average around 90%, but that doesn't mean that real estate taxes will go up 90%. Instead, the county will be fixing its 2007 tax rate in May next year, and will adjust the rate down (currently $0.82 per $100, or 0.82%) to compensate for the increased assessments, subject of course to the annual increase that they are looking for (in 2006 the rate increased from $0.79 to $0.82).

A 'public memo' was released November 15 by Doug Stanley, Warren County Administrator, explaining all this - click here to view it. Good job Doug! But it's a pity that this couldn't have been released before the assessments were published, so that people were forewarned, and had time to get their minds around what to expect. I suspect that may have reduced the number of people appealing their assessments over the past couple of weeks.