When Shawn McIntyre pulled his original 2002 Fairfax County property assessment out of the mailbox, he was shocked.
McIntyre moved into his Vienna home, on Ceret Court, around a year ago.
"The original assessment was 105 percent of what I paid," McIntyre said. "That sort of rubbed me wrong."
So McIntyre, wary of the high town and county taxes that would come with the assessment, decided to do something about it. He looked into the assessment appeal process, and began filling out the necessary forms. His assessment included 25 homes "comparable" homes, but McIntyre pointed out that many of those homes were selling for much higher prices than the homes in his neighborhood. The homes on Ceret Court were built in 1979, and sell for between $350,000 to $450,000.
"Some of the [comparable] homes were brand new, and they were listed at $600,000 and up," McIntyre said.
His final assessment was around $430,000, a reduction of approximately $55,000 from the original number. This change should save McIntyre around $700 in county taxes, and $150 in town taxes. But McIntyre isn’t the only person in his neighborhood who will be seeing a revamped assessment this year. Two more of his neighbors along Ceret Court filed appeals, and were granted reduced assessments. And, using those three houses as a guide, the county has apparently decided to reduce assessments on all 26 houses in the neighborhood.
"I know people from one end of the neighborhood, and people from the other end, who have gotten the reduction in assessments. So, I assume everyone in between got the same treatment," McIntyre said.
And his neighbors appreciate the cut in assessments.
"Everyone I’ve run into has been like, ‘Oh, you’re the one,’" McIntyre said.
BUT VIENNA MAYOR Jane Seeman is not so positive about the assessment appeals. The town will probably start receiving assessment change notices, from the county, in July. But Seeman has already received correspondence from residents in two neighborhoods — one of which is Ceret Court — who are reporting widespread assessment decreases.
Vienna resident Ron Corso claimed a 20 percent reduction in the assessment increase throughout his neighborhood, Seeman said. Originally, houses in Corso’s neighborhood were assessed, on average, to be worth 37 percent more than they were assessed last year. After the appeal, though, the county lowered the assessments so that the houses are now assessed to be worth 17 percent more than last year.
Seeman is concerned that these kind of wholesale assessment changes may impact the town’s tax revenue. She said she has never heard, in previous years, about so many houses being re-assessed. And she has never received letters from residents announcing their re-assessments.
"I’ve heard more people say they have appealed," Seeman said. "When people say their whole court [has reduced assessments], we ought to watch our budget."
Fortunately, Seeman said, town staff are usually conservative when drawing up budget figures. Town manager John Schoeberlein said there are some residents, every year, who have their assessments reduced. But the number of people reducing their assessments has always been small enough not to impact the town’s overall revenue. The town has been able to make up their losses through unexpected gains in other areas of the budget.
UNTIL THE COUNTY releases official figures, though, it is impossible to know if there will be an especially large number of appeals, Schoeberlein said.
"This year we don’t know," Schoeberlein said. "If it is a matter of five, six or 10 houses, that’s not that significant. We are not aware that it will be a sweeping change across the whole town."
Seeman said she also expects that the town will lose money from an increased number of senior citizens who will be eligible for tax relief this year.
"The county also raised the cap for senior citizen tax relief," Seeman said. "We have no idea how many people will be eligible, but more people will be eligible."
McIntyre said the assessment appeal process wasn’t especially difficult.
"I sent the forms out and, within two business days, an assessor was out at my house," he said. "They even sent out forms for another group, the citizen board of appeals, which you can ask to do a third assessment if you don’t like the figure the county gives you."
The county deadline for assessment appeals was April 5. But, by law, residents have three years to file an appeal. The town will continue receiving assessment change notices from the county throughout the year, depending on when they are filed.