Washington County Assessment Information
Washington County assessment is in full swing. The new Washington County assessment values have hit the mailboxes and many are in shock and have questions. We will try to answer a few questions below and as more information becomes available we will be updating the information. However, the trend that we are seeing is disturbing and more can be found on our Washington County Assessment blog post about the early trend.
What we do know at this point is this; Tyler Technologies is the company in charge of the court-ordered reassessment of all Washington County properties. Informal value review meetings will be conducted by Tyler from March to April 2016. If a property owner is not satisfied with the results of an informal review, a formal appeal may be filed with the County Tax Revenue Dept. no later than Sept. 1, 2016.
Base-year for the Washington County assessment is what the current condition of your home as of 01/01/2017. So currently, when appealing your Washington County assessment you and/or your appraiser will be using current sales or as current as possible. Typically, it is best not to go back further than 3 years so as not to submit data that could be construed as dated and too old to be relevant.
Very little information is currently out there as far as how to access formal appeal forms. Once this information becomes available we will post links here directly to Washington County Assessment information and form.
Update: Washington County wants to have all appeals completed by 10/31/2016. It is sad the County rushed in trying to have all appeals done by the end of October. Especially disconcerting is the fact that many residents were still getting their Washington County assessment information in June and July. This did not give many the opportunity to understand what was actually going on and the lack of information added to the confusion and many did not have time to appeal. The outcome of this is that many who did not appeal may very well be getting overtaxed by Washington County. The only saving grace for these property owners is that even though this year’s tax bills may be overinflated, each property owner will or should I say should have the right to appeal next year.
Update: As of 10/15/2016 Washington County has indicated that they will NOT even have appeal forms available until June or July of 2017. This could very well deny the property owners due process by Washington County in what appears a deliberate act to create a lack of uniformity by allowing it’s property owners enough time to prepare for an assessment appeal. This should be brought to the attention at the minimum the Washington County commissioners so as not to put an undue burden upon their residents.