As property values go up, appeals surge-Desert News

The hullabaloo over assessed property values means more paperwork for county assessors in Davis, Salt Lake and Utah counties.
And it also means the Utah Legislature's Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee has scheduled a public hearing Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. to discuss the impact property taxes had on Utah residents this year.
As of 5 p.m. Monday, the deadline for property value appeals, landowners in Utah's three largest counties had filed 11,426 appeals — 4,047 more than they did in 2006.
That number is small compared to the total number of properties in each county, but the number of appeals is expected to rise this week as mailed appeals trickle in. But they must have been postmarked by Monday at 5 p.m.
The number of requests for tax appeal hearings more than doubled in Utah County this year.
Requests started pouring in over the phone at 8 a.m. Monday, until a clerk in the auditor's office shut down the system at 5 p.m. By that time, the number of hearing requests had skyrocketed to 3,026. Last year's count was 1,062.
In Davis County, appeal requests came in spurts, said Jonathan Lee, chief deputy in the clerk/auditor's office.
But from 4 to 5 p.m. there was a steady stream of property owners — most from Bountiful — who dropped off their forms with comparable home sale prices attached.
Larry Wilcox, who lives in Bountiful, was the last person to file in Farmington in person on Monday.
He said his property value increased 47 percent over last year's assessment, and he doesn't believe the market value placed on his 17-year-old home is accurate.
Wilcox, who still works and has paid off his home, said he doesn't believe the tax burden on himself is as bad as for people who are retired and live on fixed incomes.
"Something should be done," he said. "(The tax rate) ought to be adjusted down the road. Cap it at some point."
That way, he said, once someone's income is fixed, his expenses are fixed, as well.
It was easy to find similar stories and hear pleas to government officials to improve the methodology for collecting property taxes.
On average, Davis County's residential property values increased 19.5 percent, but Bountiful saw the highest increase in values in the county: 30.5 percent.
Even Davis County Assessor Jim Ivie, a Bountiful resident, appealed his value.
Appeals are a way to ensure the county has the most accurate information, Ivie said.
Salt Lake County's property values are the highest that Salt Lake County Assessor Lee Gardner has ever seen, with an average increase of 22.3 percent over past year.
But the rising property values didn't follow that same trend when it comes to appeals, said Liz Fehrmann, Salt Lake County assistant tax administrator. Approximately 6,500 property owners appealed their appraisal value this year. The county received more than 7,600 appeals in 2001, Fehrmann said.
Fehrmann believes appeals didn't reach a new high because "values are underassessed in a great deal of the county."
Appraisals are based on market values in January. Things have changed in eight months, and the market "has cooled somewhat," Salt Lake County Assessor Lee Gardner said. That's why a lot of people appeal, he said. Property owners won't see the cooling off until next year's tax notices are mailed, because those will rely on market data in January 2008.
"It's not surprising," Gardner said of the appeals. "That's natural when you see a significant increase in property values. People will look at the value and go, 'Whoa, I need to appeal,' without really seeing if it's indicative of what the market is."
Each hearing can deal with one parcel or 300, so it's hard to tell exactly how many properties will be appealed. But Utah County Assessor Kris Poulson says this year's numbers could have been worse.
"If you think about it, (the requests for appeals) are about 2 percent of the taxable parcels we have," Poulson said. "That's not extremely bad."
Poulson said there is about a 5 percent margin of error on this year's valuations, and some valuations have incorrect information. For example, the county has had multiple complaints from residents who have vaulted ceilings in their homes that were counted as a second story.
Although the deadline for scheduling an appeal has passed, residents can still contact the assessor's office if the information on their notice is incorrect, Poulson said.
"If our data is wrong, that could be why our value is wrong," Poulson said. "There are areas that we haven't had a chance to review yet, but I would say, out of 20 homes that we look at, probably 18 or 19 will be (correct)."