Washington County Property Owners Angry Over New Appraisals
Alternative content
Washington County Property Owners Angry Over New...
Washington County Property Owners Angry Over New Appraisals
Nate Morabito/News Channel 11 Connects
Melinda and Tim Riner look at their new property appraisal.
New Washington County, Tennessee, property appraisals arrived in taxpayers’ mailboxes Monday and many are not happy with the news. Among those people, Melinda and Tim Riner, who love their house in Fall Branch, but are also realistic.
“The 24 by 24 farmhouse, it’s not going to sell for $72,000 in this market,“ Tim Riner said.
Washington County assessors think the house is worth that much. The appraisal mailed to the Riner’s this week lists the property’s value at nearly $73,000; a far cry from 2004’s appraisal.
“It took 21 years for it to go from $20,000 to $44,000,“ Melinda Riner said. “Within one year, the appraisal went from $44,000 to $73,000.“
Of the 57,000 appraisals received this week in Washington County, the vast majority included similar jumps in value. In fact, according to Washington County Property Assessor Monty Treadway, on average, property values increased by somewhere around 30% across the board.
“This is what the state says we have to do every five years and we don’t like it any more than the people do,“ Treadway said.
Treadway could easily be the least popular man in the county right now, but he says the increases in home values since the last appraisal are justified.
“With the economic times that we’ve had, a lot of people say property values have gone down, but this is over the last five years, not over the last one,“ Treadway said. “From 2003 to 2007, property values increased by a big margin.“
Despite the high property values, Treadway says 60% of property owners won’t see a change when it comes to their taxes.
“It don’t actually mean a tax increase, because the tax rate will come down,“ Treadway said.
This summer, the state will lower the county’s tax rate to offset the increase in appraisal values. That means there’s a chance some people will pay the same in taxes. County Mayor George Jaynes says the only people who will likely pay more in taxes are those whose values increased by “more” than 30%. He says those with increases “under” 30%, could pay less in taxes this year.
Still, if people are not happy with their appraisals, Treadway urges property owners to call or visit his office in Jonesborough. Those with disputes may be able to present their case to the County Board of Equalization this Summer.
Click play above for more.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
More of the same I guess. “Major fustration”. We have been in this area all our lives and are just becoming more and more distrustful of our government both local and national. The people that are making this country stay afloat are getting more and more used by all of our governments and the officials “WE” elect if we don’t wake up and I mean soon this country will be like East India! The wealthy and the poor, no middle ground. When will it stop if we don’t stop it ourselves. We elect them so we also can unelect them! They serve us??????? Property taxes are just another way we are being stripped of our power to have a voice. HOW LONG WILL WE SLEEP????
Anyone with half a brain knows property values in this area do not increase 6% per year. Who do they think they are kidding. This is just the first step. Now watch your Tax Bill go up if not this year in the next 4 years. Recent sales as well as current Real Estate listing prices will not support these new appraised values.
Under state law the city and county government can not profit from this and by law must reduce the current tax rates. If they don’t, lets take em to court. Lets vote them out of office, we ought to do that anyway, every one of them. In Washington county Tn, any elected offical that voted to build all the new schools we have without having a way to pay for them , which by the way was almost all if not all, should be voted out office. Thats why we faced the car tax. The fools didn’t has the money to do it.
We received our tax assessment notices on Monday of this week. I am so mad that I could spit. This is the most rediculous assessment of values of property I have ever seen. In this downturned economy, to have the values of your property increase as ours have in these assessments is totally unfair. To say that property has increased 30% since the last assessment, then assess our property at three times, four times, and YES five times the amount of assessment from the last assessment of the same property is assinine. We have one vacant commercial lot that we have held for 41+ years to have for our care in old age. Well we are basically there now, and the taxes are killing us to hold it. They are almost $8,000 per year…city and county combined, and this property is not bringing in a dime. It has been on the market for 4 years now, and no takers…even though we priced it considerably below an appraisal done by a professional. We have paid so much land tax over all those years it is pitiful, and now cannot sell it. If someone who appraised it in the tax office would give us what they say it is worth, we would sell it in a second. They upped the value of this property five times…yes five times…what it was on the last assessment cards. You are very right New To Area, the comissioners cannot keep their hands out of our pockets, nor can they stay within a budget. We feel that a Land Tax Revolt is in order…what could they do at Jonesborough if everyone quit paying land tax to protest the uppage and high tax…sell it all on the block…I think not. When are we as a people going to say enough is enough? Stop the inasnity…stop the insane uppage of taxes now…people are struggling to live and eat and have the necessities. The buck has got to stop somewhere folks!
Donttreadonme, go to Zillow.com, and you can get some fairly reliable information on comparables in your neighborhood. You can see sq. footage of other homes, compare them to yours, and you can also see recent sale prices, plus they give the 2008 combined city and county taxes. It helped my husband and me when we went to fight our Sullivan County taxes. We discovered we had been paying more than like homes in our neighborhood for the past two years, so the assessor fairly lowered our appraisal to what we paid for our home. We couldn’t have asked for more. However, we feel Tennessee should do something to freeze property taxes for seniors. One must make under 24K to qualify. For seniors making over that amount, it’s still difficult for those of us on fixed incomes. My teacher pension from out of state is more than the 24K, and you know I didn’t get rich teaching school for thirty years. My husband and I are young retirees, and feel that if taxes keep rising, we could be taxed out of our home that we spent our lifetime savings to enjoy. We’re both tired of paying for schools; we’ve done our share and more, for sure. And, we never had children….
My tax appraisal went up 40% and my parents’ appraisal went up 55%. I couldn’t have sold my house at this amount even at the top of the bubble, and certainly not now. I would be lucky to sell it now for the 2004 appraisal price.
Evidently they’re trying to cram this down the taxpayers’ throats and have been expecting flak over these prices. Reappraisals were done over the phone in the past. When I called to complain yesterday, I was told I would have to apply several weeks from now to see a board in June over the matter. I was also told to have my own set of sold comparables in hand to prove my case to them. I’m not an appraiser, and neither are the vast majority of our citizens! The burden of proof should be on the county, not us. They are attempting to filter out the number of properties they have to appraise down by making the process more difficult and time consuming. We already had one tax day tea party, it looks like it’s time for another.
It’s the schools, folks!!! They are endless bottomless pits, and we all know the US spends more on students than other countries, and the kids aren’t doing as well. I’m a retired teacher from out of state, and I see it everywhere; the taxpayers are being ripped off while school districts waste money while little ever reaches the classroom and the children. When the parents complained about possible Sullivan County school closures and got their way, I knew it would only be time before the county went to the taxpayers for the help. That’s what happened. The majority of all county dollars go to the schools;look at the graph on your tax bill. In these economically difficult times, everyone should cut expenses, and that includes the schools. Schools have and always will have their hands out for ever more and more money because they can!
My taxes went up 27%. Others I know went 33%. And have a friend that has vacant land that went up 67%. That is outrageous. I think that with the economy the way it is and all the houses in foreclosure that they are trying to bleed the ones with anything out of what they have or what they can get by with. I would love to sell them the property for what they estimated it at. If you go to an auction and buy a piece of property at a reduced price then what is the use if they tax it above what it’s worth ( according to them). Something needs to be done to better appraise property rather than to pay for overpaid fat cat government employees.
Advertisement