Equalization Board Rules Twice
Jasper County Board of Equalization (BOE) members Francis Cason, LaRue Camp, and Theresa Urbano concluded their review of all 2005 appeals this week.
Last Thursday, the trio settled an appeal launched by a Long Piney Road resident. The taxpayer was requesting a value review of a 1990 mobile home situated on a Georgia Power leased lot. He said that his assessed value had increased by 25 percent from 2004 to 2005 but suggested that a increase should not have exceeded nine percent.
In the absence of chief appraiser Lynn Bentley, Chairman Jim Harrell represented the Board of Assessors (BOA).
With a fair market value of $37,960 and an assessed value of $15,184, BOE members voted un-animously to reduce the BOA assessed value and institute a nine percent increase in lieu of a 25 percent increase.
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The final 2005 appeal was heard Monday afternoon. Also an appeal based of value, the applicant was seeking clarification as to why his 63.86 acre lot on Greer Road increased by more than $35,000 from 2004-2005.
Chief Appraiser Bentley was present to present the BOA’s case. She said the increase was based on 2004 large tract sales in that area. She provided six comparable sales ranging from 40 acres to 115 acres to justify the value increase. Mr. Cason, BOE chairman, argued that the comparable sales provided showed no removal of timber land value thereby disqualifying them as valid.
“A good comp [comparable sale] would have timber land value backed out of the sale,” the chairman said as he cited a Glynn County ruling to support his point of view.
After several minutes of wrangling over the concept of raw land values versus timber land value, the board voted 2-1 to reduce the applicants land to its 2004 value of $125,300 instead of endorsing the BOA’s assessed value of $162,000. Mrs. Urbano cast the dissenting voting.
The BOE is the second avenue for taxpayers to appeal their property assessments. If a taxpayer chooses to launch an appeal their first recourse is to the BOA. If not pleased with that outcome, taxpayers may file an appeal with the BOE, with the Superior Court being the next recourse.
Appeals can be filed based on three tenets – uniformity, whether the assessed value is comparable to values in that area; value, whether it’s taxed at a fair market price; and taxability, how it is assessed.
Appeal hearings for 2006 applications are expected to begin later this year.