About 20 Grantsville residents met with Tooele County Assessor’s Office staff to discuss their property assessments and the appeal process during a town hall meeting on Tuesday night.
Jake Parkinson, chief deputy Tooele County assessor, ran the meeting at the Grantsville City Library, where residents were able to ask questions and voice their concerns. The assessor’s office completed its valuation of all properties in Grantsville this year and the value of all total property jumped 14 percent between Jan. 1, 2014 and the first of this year.
The county assessor’s office determines a property’s assessed value by comparing it to property sales of similar properties, including location, depreciation and other factors to determine the fair market value of the property.
The state tax commission then audits the assessed values to determine if they’re within 90 to 110 percent of their most likely sale price between a willing seller and willing buyer.
“We passed an audit with the state; that doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes,” Parkinson said.
Parkinson encouraged residents with concerns about their property assessment to appeal if there were inconsistencies or mistakes between their property and the information the county assessor’s office had. Residents can appeal their assessments in person but also have a digital submission option, which may be more convenient, he said.
“We believe that if the government has made a mistake, you shouldn’t have to take a day off work to fix it,” Parkinson said.
Anyone appealing their property assessment should bring evidence, such as recent appraisals, a letter from the property owner contesting the county’s information on a property, or comparable property values from a real estate agent.
Parkinson gave several real-world examples of Grantsville residents who successfully filed appeals with the county assessor’s office this year.
In one case, a woman owned two parcels of adjoining land but there was no access to the second parcel without going through the one with her house on it, Parkinson said. The county assessor’s office didn’t give the property owner the residential exemption on the second lot, which she appealed.
A property used as a primary residence is only taxed at 55 percent of the assessed value of the property.
Since the back lot could not be used for a different purpose with no access and would be sold together with the front lot in a sale, the assessor’s office gave the second lot an exemption. The exemption should result in about $250 in tax savings for the owner of the properties, Parkinson said.
“We don’t mess with your taxes, we mess with that market value,” he said. “That ends up trickling down into your pocketbooks on taxes.”
Another example of a mistake the assessor’s office made came on a property with a house built in the 1960s and a garage built in 2001, Parkinson said. The year the garage was built was transferred onto the year for the house, which significantly affected the assessment on the home with less applied depreciation, he said.
The difference between the assessment with the proper build date and the incorrect one was about $30,000, Parkinson said. After the successful appeal, the property owner should save about $200 in taxes, he said.
Parkinson also stressed that some errors are the result of the assessor’s office not knowing information on a property. In a recent example, a property owner came in with documentation that his 800-square-foot home had been dislodged from its foundation during flooding and no bank would loan on it.
The county assessor’s office had valued the property at $90,000, but the home’s unique situation — and the fact it could only be sold as a cash sale — would result in a lower assessment, Parkinson said. With only external observations available to them, it can be difficult to realize individual scenarios like that, he said.
“We had no way of knowing that,” Parkinson said. “If you had filled out a survey and said, ‘There’s some problems here,’ we would have been able to address it.”
There will be a second town hall meeting that addresses the assessment and appeal processes on Aug. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Grantsville City Library.