If you think property taxes are confusing, you ought to sit through a session of the Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals. Trust me, it will not clear things up.
Better known as PTABOA, a kind of fun acronym to say, those who serve cannot just walk in off the street. You have to understand the lengthy Property Record Card and all of its abbreviations, acronyms and numbers. There is a manual. There are formulae.
Monday morning’s meeting was my first time; wish I’d attended one last year when we had stories with pretty pointed criticisms. In an effort to address those, Assessor Laura Roberts brought in an arbitrator of sorts — not really sure what we should call Andrew Smethers, a regional VP for Nexus Group, a firm that works with most if not all Indiana county assessor offices. At least a couple taxpayers I’ve talked with over the past year or so feel that the firm is so knowledgeable and involved that we may as well eliminate the assessor’s office and hire them. But I digress.
“Intermediary” was another term used. Smethers’ independent analyses seemed to be a quite different approach than what we’d read about last year. When he disagreed with a taxpayer, he explained why; more often than not however, he found reasons to at least somewhat agree with petitioners that their assessments might be a bit high. Draw your own conclusions from that.
Terms most often heard:
Comps — short for comparisons. Every property in the county that gets sold during the period in question has the potential to impact your property’s value — mostly certainly one(s) close by. There are “good comps,” which makes the defense of a property’s assessment easier. Or not. There are “bad comps,” which mostly means there are none. If a property saw a huge increase in its assessed valuation and there are no comps — you might gain an advantage. And of course there is the grey area — “not great comps.”
Obsolescence — I know obsolescence when I see it (in the mirror every morning) but when it’s used as an assessment term, it can get a bit confusing. There is exterior obsolescence and functional obsolescence. I understand the difference but do not fully understand why this particular word is used. But I’ve come to understand what they mean. I think.
Neighborhoods — Again, a common term but what exactly is a neighborhood in assessment-speak and how are they determined? Curiously, if you go to the website of the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, which oversees the process, and then go to the glossary of terms, you will not find an entry for “neighborhood.”
Consistency — or lack thereof, in assessments even within those neighborhoods.
Not surprisingly, two of the appeals Monday were in two of the neighborhoods that I had found most problematically inconsistent during my dive into the Property Tax Saga: the Woodlands addition and the Timber Ridge area, both on Bluffton’s north side. One of the appeals won, the other did not. But Smethers’ investigation convinced him to recommend to Roberts that the Woodlands neighborhood situation needs fixed. Too many neighborhoods with delineations he could not defend. She will do that. PTABOA member Blake Fiechter, a once-and-future homeowner there, predicts more appeals next year after the neighborhood lines are adjusted.
A bright spot: While the standard appeal is about a home’s increased assessment, three of the appeals involved unique situations in which the homeowners felt they deserved a break. Major repairs, foundation and basement problems, dealing with a utility and a changing flood plain. The board agreed with two of them. Smethers’ mind can be changed. Board members are human.
The main lesson, if you have an appeal scheduled for the next session or if you ever consider appealing your assessment: Do your homework. I was of the opinion that, after my extensive research and supposedly fact-filled articles and graphs and stories and opinions over the past year or so, I had a pretty good understanding of comps and neighborhoods and processes. There were several taxpayers Monday morning that could give me a lesson or two.
That would of course include VP Smethers. In discussing the complexities of assessing rental properties, he mentioned a “week-long course” on the topic.
Sign me up? No, thanks. I am confused enough.
miller@news-banner.com
