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County begins real estate reassessment process
Fauquier reassesses its real estate every four years.
The county’s last revaluation of residential, agricultural, retail, commercial and industrial property occurred two years ago.
New values will take effect in January 2010.
Early steps in the process to establish the 2010 values are underway. Fauquier soon will hire an appraisal firm, which will determine the value of the county’s more than 30,000 parcels.
Real estate provides Fauquier the greatest source of local revenue to pay for an array of county government functions and the school system. It allows the county to set the appropriate tax rate to generate the money necessary to support such public services.
Fauquier’s real estate tax rate stands at 64.5 cents per $100 assessed value. Because of a fragile economy and a weak housing market in particular, the rate this year probably will increase by at least 10 cents.
Four years ago, typical homeowners experienced almost a 30 percent increase in their tax bill, according to the commissioner of revenue. Many, however, saw substantially larger hikes in their real estate tax bills.
Only four Virginia companies conduct "mass" appraisals. Two have bid on the Fauquier project.
The county will award the contract to one of them. Then Fauquier and the company will negotiate a contract based on a per-parcel cost.
The 2006 reassessment cost Fauquier about $800,000. The 2010 one probably will cost more than $1 million.
It will be a labor-intensive enterprise. The company’s assessors will visit every property in Fauquier, using a number of criteria to determine value, including the age and condition of structures. Most importantly, they will use recent sale prices of comparable properties to establish new values.
All of the data will be entered into electronic files. Much of it will be available online, through Fauquier’s Web site, as is current real estate reappraisal information.
Dissatisfied property owners will have three chances to appeal new values, beginning with the board of assessors.
The supervisors will name appointments to the five-member panel, one from each of Fauquier’s magisterial districts.
Property owners who dispute their values would schedule appointments with a board of assessor member and, usually, the appraiser who studied the properties in question.
After its review, the board of assessors either adjusts the values or leaves them unchanged.
Property owners who disagree with the board of assessors’ findings can appeal to another panel called the board of equalization.
Fauquier’s Circuit Court judge will appoint the three-member board of equalization, based on recommendations from the supervisors. Virginia law requires that one of the board members be a Realtor.
Property owners unhappy with equalization board rulings can take their cases to circuit court.
Supervisor Terry Nyhous (Center District) believes it’s time to consider more frequent reassessments, perhaps every two years. That would accomplish a couple of things, Nyhous said.
It would more accurately reflect real estate values at a point in time and allow for phased increases in tax rates for landowners, he said.
After the last quadrennial reassessment, landowners got socked with huge value increases and big tax bills. A reassessment every two years might temper those effects, Nyhous suggested.
But he remains undecided about the idea of a more frequent reassessment cycle and wants to discuss it with the other supervisors.
"We don’t know enough yet" to make a switch, Nyhous said.
The new reassessment almost certainly will result in reduced real estate values, which means Fauquier will have to increase the tax rate "to hold the revenue levels even" to cover its expenses, board of supervisors Chairman Chester Stribling (Lee District) said.
Lean budgets will become a way of life for years to come, Stribling said.
Government must continue to pursue different ways to increase revenue, the chairman said, adding that continuous spending cuts to control costs have their limits.
"How many years can you tighten up, before there’s nothing to tighten up?" he said.
E-mail the reporter: ddelrosso@timespapers.com
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