Fulton County Says Property Appeals Could Be Resolved By July
Dwight Robinson, Fulton County’s chief appraiser, said the county has increased staff and is scheduling more than 1,170 hearings a week to get through property assessment appeals.
Miranda Hawkins / WABE
Fulton County is working through more than 40,597 appeals of property assessments that it received this summer.
That’s more than three times the number of appeals filed in 2017, after many homeowners saw a large spike in property assessments in 2018, some higher than 50 percent.
Property assessments determine how much people pay in property taxes.
Now those homeowners have to go before appeals boards if they aren’t happy with the county’s response.
Realtor Maggie Paynich helped 500 residents file appeals and is now attending hearings with some of them.
“I have been coaching people through the process, helping them prepare comps and put together a case for why they should get the value that they want,” Paynich said. “I’m trying to just empower the community to know about this process. It’s really not that difficult. You just have to know what to do.”
Dwight Robinson, Fulton County’s chief appraiser, said more than half — 20,441 appeals — have been processed by the Board of Assessors so far.
Appeals Process
The Board of Assessors sends letters to Fulton homeowners acknowledging they have received property assessment appeals.
If the county decides not to change the value based on the appeal letter, the Board of Assessors automatically forwards the appeal to a second level: the Board of Equalization. The Board of Equalization then sends letters to these homeowners with a hearing date and time. In addition, residents can also choose to meet with hearing officers at the county or go to arbitration.
If homeowners are still not satisfied, Robinson said they could take the appeal to Fulton County Superior Court.
Robinson said the county has increased staff and is scheduling more than 1,170 hearings a week to get through property assessment appeals.
He said it could take Fulton County more than nine months to get through all of the Board of Equalization hearings and resolve concerns about property tax bills.
“The plan, and it’s a pretty aggressive plan, is to have all of those appeals heard by summer of next year,” Robinson said.
Robinson told WABE last year that the spikes are due to Fulton playing catch-up.
“The market has steadily increased from 2012 until this point,” Robinson said. “The increases, the magnitude of the increases, are as a direct result of us not keeping up with those values.”
In 2017, Fulton County received 12,861 appeals of property assessments. In 2016, there were 9,864 appeals received.
Robinson said so far 3,500 appeals have been resolved.
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