The Appeal
I am not happy with Mom's 2009 Reassessment. Most people I know aren't happy with their reassessments. The reassessment does NOT seem to be grounded in reality and I'm wondering why.
In order to try to understand what I was looking at I went through a process of evaluating my mother's and her neighbors' property assessments in 2009 and 2005. I did this in a number of ways by breaking out the house lot, by averaging the rate to obtain a per acre value, etc. "Experts" told me that road frontage was important and that 2007 sales were used to set the rates. In my research I decided that, although I've heard a couple of Augusta county employees and or Board of Supervisors members had received preferential treatment, the rates were applied equally to all residents.
To sum up the appeal process I can say that they were ready for us, processed us in a pleasant and efficient manner. In the waiting area there was a slide show of Augusta County properties sold throughout 2008. I was more than a bit surprised to see so many properties had sold for more than the assessed value. In my experience, having bought a Staunton city property for less than the assessed value, and having looked at a couple of those shown, those prices were a bit excessive.
Each person was taken care of by a team consisting of one member of the Board of Assessors and one person from Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal (BRMA). Of my duo, the rep from Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal did most of the talking. Both gentlemen were pleasant and treated me respectfully. The BRMA rep tried to explain how they had done their work. All he really convinced me was that they had screwed everybody equally. At the end of our meeting I was convinced that some combination of ancient divination and voodoo was used to come up with the formula by which the assessments were made. Seriously, it is impossible to transcribe what I was told.
Towards the end of our conversation, I was shown a list of January 2009 sales. You could have knocked me over with a feather. LOTS of sales, all above the NEW assessed values at a time when supposedly there is NO money for loans available.
This takes us to another question. If all this money IS available and IS being loaned for real estate and real estate IS selling for above assessed rates despite the many, many properties still sitting unsold, what exactly is this CRISIS the POTUS is spending trillions of dollars to fight? Somebody somewhere is lying and the only thing these folks have in common is that they are in government.
Labels: AugustaCountyReassessment
