Graham County has 5,000 structures to be evaluated for value
Robbinsville – If you have owned property for any length of time in Graham County, you should know that every few years, the county tax assessor evaluates your property and assigns an updated property tax value.
The last revaluation was in 2019 and the county tax assessor’s office has been working since 2020 for the next revaluation, which will be released in 2023.
It’s a huge undertaking. There are 10,300 parcels and around 5,000 structures in Graham County, and they are all evaluated in some form or another, all done by four people – tax assessor Brandy Cook, real estate appraiser and tax consultant Chris Ferris of Locust and a couple of other contractors hired when necessary. They’ve been evaluating about 25 structures a day.
In most cases, county officials and contractors make visits to the properties, from the subdivisions of Robbinsville to the most remote cabins and shacks.
But when property owners or terrain don’t cooperate, they resort to other methods, including high-definition satellite images from which they can measure structures and take note of any improvements – or in some cases, the opposite of improvements – since the last evaluation period leading up to the 2019 revaluation.
Little escapes their attention. Replace a shingle roof with a metal one? Add a storage shed? Add onto your house without permits? Neglect your property? Very little goes unnoticed.
They will also take into account recent real estate sales, which over the past year or so has been a wild ride in terms of sales prices.
Cook and Ferriss gave the Graham County Board of Commissioners a sample of their work during a meeting on Aug. 23. Each commissioner and the county manager received copies of their specific properties for them to review, with special attention shown for County Manager Jason Marino’s house, which included photos projected onto a wide screen behind the commissioners.
As a bit of a prank, a fake property value of $1 million was assigned to his house – about three times its 2019 assessed value. Levity aside, Cook said the purpose of showing the county’s elected leaders their latest property record cards was to ensure the public knows “that they aren’t getting away with anything.”
Ferriss told the board that members were being educated about the process so that when citizens call them with questions, they know the answers. Commissioner Lynn Cody replied that if he receives such calls, he’ll simply refer the caller to the tax assessor’s office.
Cook said the revaluation process is about 85 percent complete for properties being measured, and about 35 percent complete for valuation.
The tax assessor will be recording data up until Dec. 31, when the last deeds of the year are recorded, with notifications going out around March 2023.
Some trends they’ve noted:
* With labor and raw materials harder to get and more expensive, more people are purchasing manufactured houses;
* The county’s hot real estate market has leveled off somewhat, with buyers paying asking price more or less and fewer bidding wars breaking out;
* Calling a doublewide a resort property does not make it so;
* A single wide with additions is categorized as a doublewide.
Cook advised property owners to look at their property record cards and make sure the information is correct. In many cases, corrections can be made without having to appeal the revaluation, she said. An appeal would require a form and evidence, whereas a simple mistake in data – such as the number of bathrooms – is a simple fix.
Cook also advised people over 65 years of age with annual incomes of less than $33,800 to apply for elderly exemptions in their property tax.
For more information, go to the tax assessor’s website at grahamcounty.org/tax_assessor.html.