Monroe County property owners are receiving their updated property assessment values. County assessor Judy Sharp started mailing them July 17.
The gross assessed value of the county grew by $500 million in the past year. The total assessed value of all the structures in the county is in the neighborhood of $9 billion, Sharp said.
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Sharp said new construction accounted for much of the increase in the county’s worth.
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Sharp said this year’s was a general reassessment, based on physical inspection of each property, the first the state has mandated since 1999. And this year the state adjusted its cost tables — a list of the value of various construction materials, price per square foot, and other factors that determine the value of a property — which hadn’t been revised since 1999.
All counties use the same cost tables, but then other things come into play, Sharp said, such as a “location multiplier,” which reflects local variation in the costs of labor, material and equipment for construction.
To those standard cost calculations, Sharp factors in a market adjustment factor, reflecting what the property has sold for, if it has changed hands in the past two years, and what similar properties in the area have sold for.
Sharp said she’s expected to get assessments right to within 10 percent of the market value.
“The bottom line is what the market says,” Sharp said, “and the market says we’re doing pretty darned good here.”
But many homeowners aren’t happy about the new values of their properties.
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Sharp said taxpayers who disagree with the assessed value of their residential property can meet with Sharp and a state official to try to settle their differences in a facilitation hearing before filing a formal appeal. She said she’s got 14 such hearings planned for July 24, and July 25 is filling up.
“We sit around the table and see if we can’t figure out what’s going on. If it needs to be fixed, we fix it right there. If we can’t come to an agreement, you haven’t lost any appeal rights and can go to the state Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals,” she said.
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Appeal deadline is Aug. 31
Monroe County property owners who disagree with the assessed value of their properties should call assessor Judy Sharp to review how the figure was calculated. If necessary, a facilitation hearing between Sharp, the property owner and a state official can be scheduled to work out differences.
Contact Sharp at 349-2502, or visit her office in One City Centre, 120 W. Seventh St., Suite 108.
Appeals to the assessed value of a property must be filed with the state Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals by Aug. 31.
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2012/07/21/news.your-assessment-is-in-the-mail.sto
