BY KARISSA MILLER
Iredell County commissioners have been inundated with phone calls and emails from residents regarding their recent property value notice, which showed significant increases. Many residents are concerned about how their property taxes will be impacted.
Iredell County Manager Beth Mull shared some key information on Tuesday night during the meeting to help answer citizens’ most asked questions about the 2023 tax reappraisal.
The county manager said the reappraisal process is a highly prescribed process that is required by law and regulated by the N.C. Department of Revenue.
“We’re required to perform a reappraisal every eight years,” Mull said, “However, it is recommended that we perform it every four years, which is Iredell County’s practice.”
Mull said that many property owners have asked why the county couldn’t delay the reappraisal since it comes at a bad time for many families.
“Delaying the reappraisal wasn’t an option,” Mull explained.
The N.C. Department of Revenue monitors every county’s tax values each year. Those values should not fall below 90 percent or go above 110 percent of market value.
In 2021, Iredell County received notification that the county’s tax values had dropped below the 90 percent range and that they were 87.72 percent of the median sales data. In May of 2022, Iredell County received another notification from the N.C. Department of Revenue indicating the county had dropped to 71.46 percent of the median sales assessment data.
“Both letters indicated that a reappraisal was needed to get our values back into the acceptable range,” Mull said.
Median Sales Price of Residential homes in Iredell County
Source: Multiple Listing Service Data
Property owners who believe the new appraised value of their property is not comparable to market value as of the reappraisal date, is not equitable to comparable properties or there are errors on the property record card, they may appeal the value and provide documentation for the appeal.
The first step of the appeal process is to complete an Appeal Form in its entirety and return it with documentation to the Iredell County Assessor’s Office, P.O. Box 1027, Statesville, NC 28687, within 30 days of the date of Notice. You may also complete and submit an online appeal (https://www.bttaxpayerportal.com/TaxpayerPortalIR/Appeal).
An appraiser will review the information provided and respond with a new Notice of Real Estate Assessed Value. The objective of this review will be to ensure property is appraised at 100 percent of its true market value as of January 1, 2023; therefore, value could decrease, increase, or stay the same.
Taxpayers who wish to further appeal the assessed value may file an appeal with the Iredell County Board of Equalization and Review. Persons filing and/or presenting this appeal who do not hold an ownership interest in the subject property must include, with the appeal, an assessor-approved power of attorney form (https://www.iredellcountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3370/)
signed by the owner(s).
LEARN MORE
Visit https://www.iredellcountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/11508/2019-Countywide-Reappraisal for more information.
Fine. Then cut the tax rate to avoid harming property owners.
Doug, do you think the hungry beast would ever consider such a thing? Politicians can never get enough of OUR money!
Exactly. The politicians should stop looking at this as a tax “windfall” for them to blow more money. This increase is ridiculous. Anyone living on a fixed income or retired should be nearly exempt from property taxes in the first place.
I agree with Doug. Example: one of my properties went from $16,000 to $29,000 for 0.55 of an acre. Nothing changed. Nothing on it. To go through the appeal process is like an act of Congress. Please, please lower the tax rate.
Why won’t the county just come out and say that tax rates will be adjusted to maintain a mostly revenue neutral budget? The process is broken when each revaluation gets taxpayers spun up about how much their property values have gone up without giving a strong assurance that the tax rates will be adjusted down. The county is creating its own PR problem by a lack of communication.
County commissioners, the county manager and others in county government are like kids in a candy store. These “conservative” Republicans will say we didn’t raise your taxes and we can’t control the reval, etc., etc. Well, I’m about tired of voting for these lying Republicans. If this tax rate is not lowered to revenue neutral, these commissioners will not be re-elected.