If you live in St. Joseph County and are surprised by your property tax assessment notice this year, you’re not alone.
Ninety percent of county residents are seeing increases in assessed value — meaning their property tax rates may go up — and the red-hot housing market may be to blame.
Beth Szweda owns Correct Property Tax, a company that helps people appeal their property tax assessments. A former deputy county assessor herself, she’s been in business for 12 years but has over 35 years of experience assessing properties.
Normally, she files several hundred appeals each year. But this year is different.
“I’ve had that many already in 10 days,” Szweda said. “We’re having a lot more appeals than we’ve ever had before.”
Szweda said she only files appeals for people if their property’s assessed value is not in line with what’s selling in their neighborhood. Sometimes, people get big assessments because their property was undervalued, and the increase is bringing it in line with the market.
Because of that, Szweda said she usually only files appeals for 50 to 60 percent of her clients. But this year? It’s more like 80 to 85 percent.
“I’m not really sure why the assessment went up the way it did,” Szweda said.
Nine out of 10 county residents are seeing an increase in assessed value this year, and county assessor Rosemary Mandrici said that’s definitely a higher proportion than in previous years.
“We have over 118,000 parcels in St. Joseph County, and about 90 percent will see some kind of increase,” Mandrici said.
Mandrici said taxable value is calculated using a mass appraisal system that’s heavily based off of the market — basically, assessors look at how much comparable properties nearby sold for in the past year.
And so, she said a red-hot housing market means bigger jumps in assessed value for everyone — although there are several smaller factors at play, including a recent comprehensive land study and increases in state cost table guidelines.
“The market has been very, very vibrant in St. Joseph County,” Mandrici said.
According to Szweda, overall area home values have gone up about 20 percent over the last 18 months. Because of that, she expected to see assessment increases of 10 to 20 percent rather than the typical 3 to 5 percent.
She said that alone would have kept her busy because it’s a big chunk to have your taxes increase by, especially in light of inflation. But some county residents have gotten much larger increases.
“I’ve seen 50, 100, or even over 100 percent,” Szweda said. “That’s really what I didn’t expect to see.”
If you’re unhappy with your property tax assessment, you can file an appeal by submitting Form 130 and any accompanying evidence to the St. Joseph County assessor’s office by June 15.
Szweda’s advice? File your appeal as soon as possible and be patient. She expects the assessor is going to get a lot of them, and it will likely take the office longer to go through the appeals than in previous years.
She also recommends you keep a copy of your filing by sending it through certified mail, dropping it off in person and getting a file stamped copy, or emailing it and making sure you get and save a response from the assessor’s office saying it has received your appeal before the deadline.
“As long as it’s on file, they will get to it,” Szweda said.
Contact Jakob at jlazzaro@wvpe.org or follow him on Twitter at @JakobLazzaro.
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