Thursday, January 15, 2009
On December 10, 2008, I posted information stating that Orange County, North Carolina was ready to release the 2009 property tax revaluations. By now, everyone has received letters from Orange County with the new property tax values for their homes. I have received many, many calls and emails from clients, friends and people who have found me online asking me to look at their property tax values and to see if I think they are correct. I have seen the gambit from under valued, to spot on, to over valued. In those cases where the property tax values are excessive, I strongly urge people to contest the value. The County knows that this is a diffcult time to revalue properties and they know that they did not get it right in all cases. If you do want to contest your tax value, you need to use the right paperwork and do so by March, 2009. Click here to learn about the revaluation process, how to file an appeal and to access the necessary paperwork.
I do want to share that I live in Ironwoods in Chapel Hill and my tax value went up 31%. As everyone else that had a significant increase, I was not thrilled about this but I know that the County has to revalue properties every 4 years and that over the last 4 years, our market has appreciated.
It is really important to understand — and I have been discussing this at every opportunity — the hope is that our actual tax bills will not increase significantly in 2009. The next piece of this equation is the tax rate, which is determined by the County and the City (Chapel Hill and Carrboro). Although our tax values have risen, the hope is that the tax rates will be reduced so that our total tax bill is close to the same as last year.
Yesterday, there was an important article published in the Chapel Hill Newspaper titled, ” County May Hold The Line.” The article, a link to which is below, outlines a number of Commissioners points of view that the tax rate should be revenue neutral. This means that — hopefully — the tax rates will be reduced so that your property tax bill will not be substantially different than was in 2008. I will continue to provide these updates as the information is released.
MARK SCHULTZ, Staff Writer
County may hold the line
It’s called the “revenue neutral” tax rate.
For the complete story … https://www.chapelhillnews.com/front/story/36402.html