Property Assessment

Important Property Tax Information - Portland Oregon Metro Area

 

 

Greater Portland Property Assessment Update - November 2015

Property Assessment Update is an occasional service to corporate asset managers, accountants and finance officers, independent certified public accountants, property managers and tax agents, and membership organizations.

• November 2 Clackamas County, Oregon, Appraisal plan due to Oregon Department of Revenue (ODOR)
• November 16 Clackamas County, Oregon, first trimester tax payment due for 2015-2016 year
• November 16 Columbia County, Oregon, first payment due for 2015-2016 year
• November 16 Washington County, Oregon, first tax payment due for 2015-2016 year
• November 17 Multnomah County, Oregon, first payment due for 2015-2016 year
• Property Tax Appeals in Oregon: A property owner can appeal the valuation of the property to the local Board of Property Tax Appeals. Petitions to the board must be filed between late October, when the tax statements are mailed, and December 31

No property assessment news to report for Clark County, Washington, and Skamania County, Washington, for this month.

For additional information for those who own or manage properties in the Portland Metropolitan Area, each of the seven counties that make up this area are listed below for your convenience. (As defined by the U. S. Office of Management and Budget as the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Also known as the Portland Metropolitan Area or Greater Portland.)

Greater Portland Metropolitan Area Property Tax Assessment Offices

Clackamas County, Oregon, Assessment & Taxation

Department website: http://www.clackamas.us/at/

Clark County, Washington, Department of Assessment

Department website: http://www.clark.wa.gov/assessor/index.html

Columbia County, Oregon, Assessment & Taxation

Department website: http://www.co.columbia.or.us/departments/assessors-office/assessors-home

Multnomah County, Oregon, Division of Assessment, Recording & Taxation (DART)

Department website: http://web.multco.us/assessment-taxation

Skamania County, Washington, County Assessor’s Office

Department website: http://www.skamaniacounty.org/assessor/

Washington County, Oregon, Assessment & Taxation

Department website: http://www.co.washington.or.us/AssessmentTaxation/index.cfm

Yamhill County, Oregon, Assessment & Taxation

Department website: http://www.co.yamhill.or.us/assessor

The Go-To Organization for Property Assessment Training

Any membership organization that’s been around for more than 80 years must have a winning system for satisfying the needs of its members.  One way that the IAAO achieves this winning system is to re-invent what they offer to members in the way of educational courses and training.  

The annual conference demonstrates the IAAO commitment to educational sessions that attendees can benefit from and put to immediate use in their jurisdictions or organizations.  As the “internationally recognized leader and preeminent source for innovation, education, and research in property appraisal, assessment administration and property tax policy” as the IAAO vision statement reads, that’s no small task.

This year’s conference includes educational sessions that are timely.  How technology is impacting assessment administration, property tax policy reform, changing trends that must be considered in developing property valuations, and evolving technical standards are just a few topic categories for the 81^st conference.

The conference is being held September 13 to September 16 in Indianapolis, Indiana. More details about the 81^st conference, including the educational schedule, can be viewed at http://conference.iaao.org/. 

If you think that this is just a gathering of local assessors and tax administrators reinforcing their own ideas on one another, you would be wrong. The annual IAAO conference is a place where property assessment administration specialists, private industry experts, and academic authorities meet to share best practices, new ideas, lessons learned, and successful practices and methodologies.

This year’s educational session presenters include the following companies and organizations:

Access Valuation, LLC
Almy, Gloudemans, Jacobs & Denne 
American Valuation Group, Inc. 
Appraisal Research Corporation 
Bloom, Sluggett, Morgan Law, PC 
Bose, McKinney & Evans, LLP 
CourtHouseUSA, LLC  
Don R. Scheidt & Co., Inc.  
ESRI  
International Property Tax institute  
Josh Myers Valuation Solutions  
Marshall & Swift  
Marvin F. Poer & Company 
Nexus Group  
Pictometry International Corp.  
Property Valuation Services Corp. of Nova Scotia  
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc.  
Tax Management Associates, Inc.  
TEAM Consulting, LLC  
The Appraisal Foundation 
The TrU Group  
Thomson Reuters  
Tyler Technologies, Inc.  
Walmart Stores, Inc. 

Although the IAAO is an educational organization, its leaders understand that they can’t always provide the range of topics encountered by its members solely with their own offerings. The IAAO listens attentively to and involves academic institutions and organizations.

This year’s educational session presenters include the following academic institutions and organizations:

Indiana University
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Marshall University
Oklahoma State University
Riga Technical University, Latvia
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of New Hampshire
University of North Carolina

Through a combination of actions during the last several years the IAAO has focused on international topics that are especially beneficial to those that are improving their property tax assessment systems and setting up new systems in developing countries.

In 2013 the IAAO officially established an International Committee after an ad hoc committee spent several years supporting the mission of IAAO by increasing global awareness of programs, education, and networking opportunities.

In 2014 the IAAO adopted the “Global Guidance on Mass Appraisal and Related Tax Policy.” This guidance document “provides guidance on mass appraisal of real property at market value. The primary focus is on mass appraisal for value-based recurrent property taxes (also known as ‘rates on property’). However, the principles presented here are also relevant to mass appraisal for other governmental and public purposes.” 

This year’s educational sessions include a number of presenters from local assessment jurisdictions and state departments of taxation or revenue from the United States – particularly from Indiana where the conference is being held - but also from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the World Bank Group. While the number of countries that will be represented by attendees is not known at this time, educational session presenters include people from the following countries:

Canada
China
Granada
Hong Kong
Latvia
Lithuania
Spain
The Netherlands

I began this by saying that the IAAO is successful at re-inventing what they offer to members in the way of educational courses and training. IAAO leaders and staff are continually looking for ways to improve their offerings. The theme of this year’s conference is “Racing Toward Assessment Innovation.” A pre-conference education one-day workshop entitled “Reviewer and Developer's Workshop” will be held both September 12 and 13, 2015. IAAO has developed this workshop to train members who are new to course development or want to sharpen existing skills.

As the IAAO continues to improve its educational courses, workshops, and webinars, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to look closely at how these opportunities can benefit you personally, your jurisdiction, or your company or firm.

It’s Assessment Notice Time, But Are You Focused?

Getting This Right Can Be The Difference Between Success and Failure

So, you got your latest assessment notice. You’re surprised at the change in the assessment value and immediately start to look for comparable sales (comps) that will surely convince your local assessment office or appeal board how erroneous the new assessment is.

But wait! Make sure you are trying to solve the right problem before you take action. In the 30-plus years that I spent in property tax assessment administration, which included observing appeal board hearings, property owners and their agents who challenged assessments often failed to properly address three key areas before selecting comparable sales.

Effective Date of Valuation
Each assessment has an effective date of valuation. For example a 2015 assessment may have an effective date of valuation of January 1, 2015, or December 31, 2014. It is vitally important to determine the effective date of valuation as this is the date that your comparable sales must focus on. Too many times the assessment review date by the local assessor or appeal board is several months after the effective date of valuation. Property owners and their agents often file appeals by the filing deadline that include comparable sales right up to the filing date, which may be excluded as they are not focused on the correct effective date of valuation.

Study Period
In developing each assessment the local assessor has studied the real estate market for a period of time before the effective date of valuation in order to determine how market value, or other defined value, has changed since the last reassessment. Most assessors refer to this as the study period for the type or class of property being assessed. For example, before determining how assessed values for residential condominiums should change for the 2015 assessments, with an effective date of valuation of January 1, 2015, all valid sales of such properties during a two year period ending September 30, 2014, may have been considered (October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2014). The assessor may have further considered the trends and indications from this study period to project values to the January 1, 2015, effective date of valuation. Local assessors and appeal board often give considerable weight to the study period because their greatest concern is with fairness or uniformity of assessment than with accuracy.

Validity of Sales Data
Not every sale is an indicator of market value. Many assessors and appeal boards disqualify certain sales as invalid for assessment purposes. Often short sales and bank-owned property sales need to represent “prevailing market conditions” before assessors or appeal boards will consider them. You don’t want to spend a lot of time gathering comparable sales just to have them disqualified.

Taking Action
I hope the above explanation helps you focus on the right comparable sales. Call your local assessor or appeal board representative and ask them about these three important key areas before you take action. Local assessors and appeal boards are charged with the duty of informing you of your right to review or appeal the assessment. But it helps to know the right questions to ask. It saves time for everyone involved in the process.

EXTRA TIP: Don’t overload the assessor or appeal board with too many comps. Three to five well-chosen comps that address the three key areas above will usually be sufficient. 20 comps won’t impress unless you have also performed and shown your statistical analysis of these sales, not just printed them out and attached them to the appeal form.

 

Go Direct

Why Local Property Taxes Are So Tricky

One word of advice. Call your local assessor about property tax concerns. I love real estate professionals, but real estate tax assessments are just too important (one of the largest annual expenses after mortgage payments) to get second-hand information. When more than half are first-time home buyers and many may have moved from another assessment jurisdiction or state, many buyers are in need of assistance.

In some states, like Florida, foreign buyers are taking advantage of changes in the global economy and are in need of real estate tax advice. And small and medium sized business start-ups are taking place every day, often without fully investigating local property tax consequences.

Local assessors aren't trying to be evasive, each has their own mandates, which includes having an active public relations program, it's just a fact that there are inconsistencies.

• Inconsistencies in the effective date of value estimates for assessment and tax purposes
• Inconsistencies in when assessment notices are mailed to property owners
• Inconsistencies in when tax abatement, deferral, exemption, and incentive applications are due
• Inconsistencies in when income and expense statements or personal property declarations are due
• Inconsistencies in appeal deadlines

Granted there are some real estate professionals and property tax services (corporate tax managers and independent professional property tax firms come to mind) that make it their business to know about local tax assessments and work closely with their local assessors, these are the exceptions.

Call your local assessor. Once you have talked with the assessor you may have additional questions and concerns that other professional services can help you with. But start there. You'll be glad you did. And if you are not (unfortunately not all local assessors are successful in implementing their public relations programs), you will at least have background information to consider before approaching others for help.

Best Online Newsletter for Keeping Informed About Property Taxes

PROBLEM

As a property tax consultant I need a reliable source to keep informed of changes in property tax laws and policies. For the last several years I've found the online newsletter by the National Association of Property Tax Attorneys (NAPTA) to be the best source. Oh I've tried Google Alerts and other sources, but the NAPTA daily Update is the most comprehensive and they've done the hard work for me. 

If you've used Google Alerts you know that it's difficult to tell which country, state, or province the news story is from.  I typically have to take time to follow the link, and even then many writers of news articles assume you know the state where the newspaper is reporting from.  I have to click around the site to the "contact us" webpage before I can identify the location.  But the NAPTA Update is neatly laid out from international issues to state issues in alphabetical order.

SOLUTION

The NAPTA Update newsletter is the best source to keep informed of changes in property tax laws and policies.

Emerging trends, critical issues, and the application of best practices in property taxation are being carried out in real time.  As local government operations property tax assessors don't have competition like the private sector.  But local assessors must track the progress being made by those heading the operations in comparable jurisdictions.  How are they responding to property tax law changes and what new tax policies are being proposed?

We learn from each other. This is critical for big assessment offices as well as small offices.  For example, as property assessors we need to look at the bigger picture to observe minor changes in property valuations.  But if you've been in this field long enough you learn that market indicators are everywhere. 

Property owners, investors, and attorneys who represent them, are all active participants in the markets that property assessors monitor, measure, and report on.  Property tax attorneys are professionals that influence the environment that assessors must operate in.  You have a choice.  You can wish they would just go away or you can embrace them.

According to the NAPTA website: The National Association of Property Tax Attorneys is a nonprofit organization of ad valorem tax and property tax attorneys throughout the United States who are committed to increasing awareness and understanding about property tax issues, educating the public about this specialized area of law and uniting competent tax specialists throughout the United States.