In a bad economy, we all tend to look at our bills a little more closely. That effort is paying off for property owners in Orange County, NC, where 6 in 10 property owners have successfully challenged property assessments.
Orange County, NC, is near my old stomping grounds in Wake County, NC, and is probably best known as the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (you know, those basketball fans who are not having the best March in recent memory). As the area has built up over the years, property values have increased. That may mean good news for folks looking to sell, but not such great news for taxpayers. The revaluation for the last tax year increase property values an average of 24% – which means that property taxes also increased. Records show that the average home in the county sold for about $290,000 in January 2009, according to the Triangle Multiple Listing Service – about the same as the average assessment.
Despite the appearance that the assessments are on par with sales, homeowners are taking issue with their assessments and winning. A total of 5,026 formal appeals and 1,656 informal appeals were filed in the county, representing one out of every ten homeowners. Of those, 3,073 of the formal appeals and 992 of the informal appeals were adjusted, almost of them in favor of the homeowner. That works out to about 60% of all assessments.
The Tax Administrator, Jo Roberson, stands by most of the values, citing three studies that backed up the county’s valuations. The county, however, isn’t discouraging the appeals process, noting that it helps establish a more accurate value for properties overall.
Why not just tax the land? It works.
http://www.cgocouncil.org/cwho.html
http://www.progress.org/geonomy/geono05.php