Tax Assessment Dilemma

Many, many homeowners' are confused and puzzled about why their taxes have gone up this recent tax assessment period.

Many, many homeowners' are confused and puzzled about why their taxes have gone up this recent tax assessment period.

The Colorado Statute for this period is between Jan 1st, 2007 to June 30, 2008 for right or wrong. During this period, Breckenridge and Summit County had high appreciation across all types of real estate. This is the period that is used for the new taxable values. In 2011, they will take the values based upon the period of Jan 1st, 2009 through June 30th 2010. As we all know, currently we are selling property averaging currently in the 2006 price averages.

This is what I got out of a meeting:

· For the 18 month period that Colorado law states they must get comparables (January 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008), the county saw some very dramatic increases in property values.
· Land in Breckenridge was up on average 99%, which means some were even more than that.
· In the adjustments on the comps, they have a “Time Value” adjustment that you will have to get from the Assessor for each area. If a property sold at the beginning of the time period, you must figure in the Time Value factor to get to what the value may have been on June 30, 2008.
· The Notice of Valuation that was sent out to everyone should have had the comps that they used at the bottom of the page. It shows the Time Adjusted Price, but not the other adjustments. You must contact the Assessor’s office to get the Grid Adjustments to see exactly how they compared these properties.
· Some people think that because of the Bruce Amendment, taxes can only increase 5%. This is confusing, but it actually refers to the amount the county can collect totally (if I understand this correctly). If Sales Taxes are down, they can make it up with property taxes. If taxes are going to be above the amount with all tax collections, they may need to lower the Mill Levy. It is very possible that the Mill Levy will be decreased this year because of the huge increase in Property Values. It won’t happen in Breck though. Breckenridge De-Bruced. They can raise taxes as much as they want to.

So the average for sales in that given time could be lower than what the “Time Value” adjustment amount could be, because properties during that time were on an appreciation % going forward in time. This is where the controversy comes into play!
The Time Valuation Adjustment method assumes that over a period of time from the last useable sale comparison, the subject property is either going up in value or down in value. The Assessor bases this on the statistics of property sales based on the whole year. However, annual statistics do not reflect a trend that can be happening in the latter half of a the year or from a certain point in the year going forward. In the instance of this particular assessment period, 01/01/2007 through 06/30/2008, total sales and volume started to plummet in late 2007 and got progressively worse in 2008. All Realtors in the county will tell you that the inventory was increasing and list prices were being reduced in late 2007 and all the way through 2008. Hence, why would the Assessor's office show an increase in property valuation for the same period in time? They would look at total sales averages for the whole year as a basis for the time adjustment. Well, when you look at the total averages for the year, our County did see significant appreciation. However, this skewed figure is based upon dividing the very few sales that occurred in 2008 by the prices of those properties.
For example, if you only had 20 vacant land sales for the total of the year and nearly all of those sales occurred early in the year, compared with 165 vacant land sales in the prior year, and the average price of those few 20 sales had increased in price by 20% compared to the year prior, then yes, the stats show that lots values increased by 20% for the year. It does not show the truth about what happened for the rest of the year. The market was collapsing. No sales happened for the rest of the year and if there had been they would have been for a lot less than what happened in the first part of the year. Also, if some sales had happened the second half of the year, they would have brought DOWN the total average sales price for the year. Even then it would not be accurate from a Time Value Adjustment (TVA) point of view, because it would only lower the total yearly average. If a seller had been lucky enough to sell their lot in the latter part of the year at the reduced list price it would have shown a 20% decrease since the last sale! TVA is used when there are no sales going forward to use as a direct comparable sale, or at least that is how it should be used.
So this I think, shows that the Time Value Adjustment method that the County has adopted is questionable.
You can view in more detail at http://www.co.summit.co.us/assessor/assessor_home.htm