Summit County’s assessed property value is going up and for homeowners like Stuart Trimbath, that’s reflected in the tax notice he received from the Summit County Assessor’s Office last week.
Like most properties in the county, the assessed value of Trimbath’s Summit Park home increased. Trimbath said he would be happy the value of his home had gone up, but he’s struggling to justify the noticeable hike in his property taxes.
“It causes me to wonder if a mistake has occurred or whether the market is just incredibly hot right now. Based on actual sales in my neighborhood, this seems unlikely,” Trimbath said in an email to The Park Record.
Trimbath says his property’s value increased more than 50 percent since 2014. His home, that was valued at slightly under $400,000, is now valued at $593,000, he said.
“My tax bill went from $1,900 to $2,900. That’s just too large of a jump to be consistent with a five-year period,” he said. “If I tried to put my home on the market for the price they are saying it’s valued at, I would get laughed off the planet. It won’t sell for anywhere close to that. The homes in my neighborhood don’t sell for that amount.”
The county’s assessed valuation for property went up approximately 15 percent from $13 billion to approximately $15 billion, says Steve Martin, Summit County assessor. Property valuations are based on fluctuations in the real estate market.
“The assessed value for this year goes up as the market increases,” Martin said of the change in valuation. “This year’s values reflect last year’s sales. If the market continues to increase, then next year’s sales will reflect that too.”
An increase in assessed value doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in taxes, Martin said. As property valuations increase, taxes should decrease, he added. But other factors can affect property taxes, including tax rates, new developments and centrally assessed valuations.
The Summit County Appraiser’s Office sent disclosure notices to county residents on July 31. The notices tentatively show the 2015 property valuations that homeowners will be expected to pay taxes on in November. Summit County’s calendar tax year is from Jan. 1 until Dec. 31.
If a homeowner believes the county’s assessed value is too high, they have until Sept. 15, at 5 p.m., to appeal it through the Board of Equalization. A process which Martin says is “just beginning.” As of Tuesday, Martin said he had received about 60 appeals, mainly requesting changes in primary or secondary residential status.
“Usually there is a rush right at the beginning and then a rush at the very end,” he said. “I’m hoping this year will be better than last year. I can usually tell by the number of appeals I have what conditions are like. The worst year was 2008, when we had 5,000 appeals. Last year we had around 1,100. We are hoping this year to have less than 1,000.”
The assessor’s office has at least has one appeal challenging the assessed value of a property: Trimbath’s. Trimbath said he filed the appeal because he but he can’t find the numbers to support the county’s assessment of his home. It has nothing to do with maintenance, he said. But it does have to do with the comparison value of homes in his neighborhood.
“It is not reflective of current conditions or the market,” he said. “I’d like to see some more transparency. They claim they did comparable analysis, but where? I can’t find those homes for sale in my neighborhood.”
For more information about assessed valuations, go to http://summitcounty.org/220/Assessor . To learn about the appeal process, go to http://summitcounty.org/223/Board-of-Equalization.