“We’ve had three years of record real estate growth followed immediately by this unprecedented economic downturn,” Keith said. “Under these conditions, fair and equitable property values are unattainable.”
Keith said a revaluation based on 2017-2019 data — a record number of sales and near-record sales prices — would result in double-digit percentage gains for property values in the vast majority of Montgomery County communities and double-digit increases for thousands of individual property owners at a time after sales ground to a halt.
“We were just fearful that’s going to really leave us in a position that just is very unacceptable to people — and is not addressing the loss of jobs and loss of income,” he said. “We just think it is a time where where we need to take a pause.”
Keith said some commercial property owners, in particular, have been devastated by the loss of revenue either through lack of customers, depressed sales or the complete shuttering of businesses.
The auditor’s office was finalizing 2020 values for property taxes paid in 2021 when the pandemic arrived in Ohio, Keith wrote in his letter to Ohio Tax Commissioner Jeff McClain.
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“Given social distancing protocols, our steps to communicate, engage, and encourage public participation in the reappraisal process as we typically have done in the past will be severely limited. I consider this to be a serious setback and will negatively impact overall results and public perception,” Keith wrote to McClain. “Considering the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is my firm belief that there is good cause to extend the reappraisal as it could have an adverse impact on citizens and businesses who have been affected by this unprecedented economic shutdown.”
Property tax revenue received by local governments will not be significantly impacted by a delay because voter-approved levies in Ohio are designed to raise the same dollar amount each year, according to the auditor’s office.
It’s unclear how quickly a decision will be made by the tax commissioner, Keith said.
The process to request an extension is outlined in the Ohio Revised Code. To Keith’s knowledge, however, such a request has never been submitted. Keith is believed the first county auditor to submit such a request and expects other counties to follow. He said he brought up the idea to the County Auditor’s Association of Ohio last month and has encourage other county auditors to consider requesting an extension.
Last week, the county treasurer asked the state’s tax commissioner to extend the July 17 due date for property tax payments to Aug. 14 for homeowners and businesses.
County auditors are required to do a full general reappraisal once in every six years. The auditor and and a qualified appraiser are required to view and appraise every property. The mass appraisal process takes between two and two-and-a-half years to complete on about 253,550 parcels in Montgomery County.
On the third year in between reappraisals, the auditor is required to perform a triennial update, a statistical analysis of the valid sales occurring within the prior three years and provide a percentage adjustment to equalize values of all properties in each given marketing neighborhood area.
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