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By Bill Kossler
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Homeowners received their new county property assessments in the mail recently, and many are feeling shock and awe at the size of their increase.
The last reassessment in 2002, taking effect in 2003, registered an increase in fair market valuation of about 40 percent on average. This time the increase is double that, averaging 80 percent.
Many people are asking if their increases are reasonable, and worrying about how it will affect their taxes. In conversations around town and on Rappnet, the local online bulletin board, people are trading stories of astonishing jumps in their assessments.
Some are saying their assessments went up many times- fourfold, tenfold and more. If yours went up that much, don’t panic. More than likely, this means most of your property is in Land Use. The reassessment you received in the mail is only for the base, fair market value assessment. Land Use valuation will be determined later by the Commissioner of the Revenue. Exercise your rights
But do look carefully at your assessment. The mass assessment of every property of the county is designed to be a relatively quick and somewhat rough job. It would be more effective to send a team inside every house, measuring every room- but it would also be very expensive, intrusive and time consuming for everyone. The appeals process described with your mailed assessment, and announced elsewhere in this paper today, is part of the assessment process too. If you have good reason to doubt the accuracy of your assessment, by all means, check into it. The assessors are not all knowing and all seeing. If your basement is unfinished and what looks like a second floor from the road is really just a cathedral ceiling, you might want to clarify this. Have a look at the details both on your mailed assessment and on www. vamanet.com. While you’re at it, you can take a peak at your neighbor’s assessment too.
Face the reality
of higher prices
Unless your increase is well above a 100 percent, though, most likely your assessment is pretty reasonable. Real estate speculation has been a major spur to the economy in recent years, and neighboring Fauquier County’s current assessment marked a much larger average increase of 121percent - although over four years rather than our three years. So our jump in value is not outof-line with those in surround
95.0%