A number of Knox County residents have told us that they recently received letters saying that the assessed values of their properties went way up this year.
WGIL contacted Sonia Hochstetler, Knox County Assessor and Zoning Administrator, wondering if there was a reason for a move that has taken some residents by surprise. Turns out, a tight market has caused houses to be sold well above their values in this area, and that has become a large part of the issue.
What appears here are the questions, albeit somewhat simple in nature, that we asked Hochstetler to answer. The answers are presented as they were sent to WGIL.
Q: How many residents got a “Knox County Assessment Notice” in the mail indicating a “significant increase” in assessed value?
11,292 letters went out in Knox County on Sept 5. Every year I send out all the changes in value made by the Township Assessors or County Assessment office notices to property owners. All the rest of the county properties do not get a notice because statutes say they do not get mailed notices when the only change in value is because of the County Multipliers that I am required to put on properties in order to keep the County at 33.33 of Market Value. This County is divided into 4 sections. We call them Quads. Each year that a Township has a Quad, the Township Assessor should review all the parcels in the Township and do their best to adjust them to 1/3rd of that year’s current market Value. Of course, value is a matter of opinion. In a Non-Quad year, they will make changes as addressed in the next question.
Q: How is the assessment handled?
If an improvement was added, if an improvement was removed, or if the property was reassessed by either office listed above. Any of us would have completed a value adjustment based whatever the issue was. We are all to value properties in Mass. What we do to 1 we must do to all. But if a property owner approaches a township Assessor during the time they have the “books”, then they can address that issue individually.
Q: What are the factors that would cause assessed value to go up?
The factors are what is happening in the market. Everything is based off of “what would the property sell for?” So, every time someone buys a property and pays more for it then the Township Assessor has the property valued at, it causes values to increase on all properties. There is a Sales Ratio Study done that determines what the average level of assessment each township or multi-township is assessed at. One of my jobs is to take that amount and add a multiplier to each property (seen in the notice) to increase all properties in mass. This means some properties may have been overvalued but with the multiplier now they are more overvalued, some properties may have been perfectly valued but with the multiplier now they are overvalued. Some properties may have been undervalued and with the multiplier they are now perfectly valued. Some may have been undervalued and are still undervalued.
Q: Is this similar to what happened with Galesburg residents?
If you are referring to last year, then the answer is yes. Last year was the Quad for all 6-west side of the county townships. So, all of them got a notice in the mail. In the City of Galesburg Township that was the Townships Assessors only time to make market adjustments across the board. The next 3 years they will only make changes as stated in the answer on question 2.
Q: Do property values constantly increase? What factors are there?
I would say that the answer is more often yes, to the question “Do property values constantly increase?”. The answer to “What factors are there?”, see the answer to question number 3.
Q: What would cause property values to decline?
Property values only decline when they are not selling for what the township assessor has them value at as an average in the three-year sales ratio study. There are some properties that sell for less then what the township assessor has them valued at every year. But as with any average, there are outliers. The trend has been that they are increasing every year.
Q: Will this result in “sticker shock” when residents get next year’s property tax bills?
Our office only deals with the valuation of the property. Once the value is set it is used to process taxes which are based on the rates in all the districts that a property is located in.
Q: What else can you tell [WGIL] about this?
This process has not changed much in many years. It is just that in a quad year people are receiving the notice by mail and most do not understand it. The bottom line is that if you feel that your property is not worth the value that we have it set to, then you need to appeal to the Board of Review. That is the next piece about the notices being sent out. Whether or not you receive a notice, at the time of the publication (in The Burg) and notices being mailed out on Sept 5 2024, begins a 30-day window for a property owner to Appeal the value we have on their property. 2024’s deadline is October 7th. This is the only time you can do this. You must appeal using the appropriate appeal paperwork that is available on the Assessment page of the Knox County website. You must follow the Board of Review rules on how to Appeal. We have a three-member board who will review your appeal and make an impartial decision. There is further action a property owner may take but this is the first step. I want to add that it is the property owners’ burden to provide the proper proof of why they believe that their property is overvalued. We do have new rules this year but we also have a nice power-point to help property owners file an appeal.
