The rest of the nation experienced a housing sales slump in the past year, but you'd never know it in Columbia County, where a boom could be costing you more property tax.
With 42,883 property value reassessments recently mailed, many homeowners learned the value of their homes had greatly increased.
"There was a large increase for the majority of the eastern portion of the county because of the sales amounts that property in these areas are selling for," said Debbie Robertson, the county's chief appraiser, adding that riverfront property seemed to be a top area for higher sale prices.
A higher assessment means the homeowner pays the county more property taxes. It also could mean a homeowner potentially selling the property for more money.
All total, the county's tax digest grew this year by 15.65 percent, 52 percent of that from new growth, the remainder from reassessments, Ms. Robertson said. Last year's jump in the tax digest was about 10 percent more than the previous year.
Ms. Robertson said state law requires her office to look at recent home sales in an area when reassessing the value of properties, adding the Department of Revenue's Audit Department checks each year to see how sales compare with the county's home values.
"Columbia County does not seem to be affected by a housing slump so far," Ms. Robertson said. "Our office picked up over 1,500 new homes this year, processed over 8,600 deeds, with actual sales being approximately 4,200 of those."
New house sales, she said, ranged from $81,400 for a town home to $1,007,444 for a home in Jones Creek subdivision. Two neighborhoods that had substantial increases in their assessment were Autumn Woods and Creekwalk subdivisions, where one home's increase was as high as $33,790, or 26 percent.
Ms. Robertson said the current figure for this year's tax digest is an increase of $976,155,103 compared with last year's digest, but "the appeal process could reduce that by a considerable amount."
Homeowners have until 5 p.m. June 25 to file an appeal on their assessment. That can be done by mailing a written appeal to Ms. Robertson's office, postmarked by June 25 to Columbia County Board of Tax Assessors, P.O. Box 498, Evans, GA, 30809; delivering the appeal in person to the office; e-mailing it to assessor@columbiacountyga.gov or faxing the appeal to (706) 312-7476.
Taxpayers are asked to include their name, property ID, reason for the appeal and phone number.
Reach Preston Sparks at (706) 868-1222, ext. 115, or preston.sparks@augustachronicle.com.
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It seems funny to me how everyone I've talked to who lives in Columbia County had an increase of somewhere around twenty thousand dollars in value supposedly to bring the assessment up to fair market value. It didn't seem to matter what area of the county they were in or what improvements were or were not made. Check your tax bills, call the county tax assessor and find out exactly what they're taxing you for. You may find that you've been paying for an extra bedroom or bathroom you don't have, a larger lot, a concrete paved driveway you don't have or the wrong square footage entirely. A lot of errors were made in past assessments and the county doesn't know if there are errors until you inform them in writing. They won't change it over the phone. Time is running out for filing an appeal, so you should call them soon and get your bill straight.