In 2015, the General Assembly of the State of Georgia passed House Bill 202 (HB 202), which introduced sweeping changes to the DeKalb County property tax assessment and appeal process. You have to be aware about these changes particularly about the lock-in period since it has an impact on the tax savings of a winning appeal.
In Section 12 of the approved bill, the provisions contained in O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299(c) are changed; O.C.G.A. § 48-5-299(c) is a statute that protects property owners from the constant assessment increases through the imposition of a “freeze” following the proper resolution of an appeal. Before HB 202 came into effect, an appeal to the Board of Equalization, whether present at the hearing or not, resulted in the subject property’s appraised value being capped for the following two years, except in certain cases. As such, your appeal results in a lock-in period for a total of three years including the tax year in which the appeal was filed.
With HB 202 in effect since January 1, 2016, four exceptions were made that also affected the DeKalb County property tax appeal’s procedures; the three-year lock-in period still applies. You should ask your tax advisor about the exceptions as one may apply in your case. We discuss two here:
#1 On the Taxpayer’s Part
You cannot obtain the lock-in period if and when you fail to attend the appeal hearing or don’t provide written evidence to support your opinion of the subject property’s value. While you may think that it is unjustifiable, you have to keep in mind that many owners have abused the lock-in period by filing an appeal just for the purpose of gaining it without expectations of actually winning the appeal. You have to demonstrate your willingness to push through with your appeal, not just take advantage of the lock-in period for your own ends.
While the substantiality of the written evidence is up for interpretation, you are well-advised to present persuasive evidence to support your claim of over-assessment. You and your tax advisor can include fair market values of comparable property, income and expense statements, and lease information, for example.
#2 On the Assessor’s Part
The DeKalb County property tax assessor’s office also has the power to change the locked-in value within the 3-year lock-in period under certain circumstances. These include: (1) it discovers substantial additions, deletion, and/or improvements after a visual inspection of the subject property; (2) it finds material errors in its official records regarding the characterization or description of the subject property; and (3) it finds other possible material factors that can substantially affect the subject property’s current fair market value.
Due to “gray” nature of #3 above some county assessment departments have decided that changes in market value due to sales data is reason enough to change frozen values. It is our understanding that the Georgia legislature is working to prevent this from happening by making this code section of the law more concrete.
The bottom line: Before filing your DeKalb County property tax appeal, you have to be aware of the increased diligence required on your part as property owner and taxpayer. Otherwise, you may well be wasting your time when you appeal is struck down by one of the four exceptions stated on HB 202.
