Allegheny County property assessment appeals process puts burden on owner
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It's up to Allegheny County property owners who challenge the values placed on their real estate to prove those new assessments are wrong.
That was the message representatives from the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review brought to members of county council last week. The board, known as B-PAAR, is the quasi-judicial, independent agency that handles formal property assessment appeals.
With the county in the final weeks of completing the first property reassessment in 10 years, the appeals board is gearing up to hear thousands of challenges to the new numbers.
Following court orders, the county will continue to use 2002 base-year numbers as the basis for property tax bills this year, with the new values going into effect in 2013, after most appeals have been decided.
David Montgomery, the appeals board solicitor, told council that hearing officers must assume that the values county assessors place on real estate are correct. It is up to property owners to provide evidence that the new assessments are incorrect, he said.
"People have to do their homework before they arrive for their appeal hearings," appeals board chairwoman Phillis D. Lavelle told council.
A certified appraisal may offer the most persuasive evidence, council members were told. Recent sales of comparable properties also can persuade the hearing officer that an assessment should be modified, Ms. Lavelle said.
A sale within the past one or two years carries more weight than a transaction several years earlier, she said. The more similar the physical dimensions of the properties being compared and of the neighborhoods in which they are located, the better the "comparable," she said.
Ms. Lavelle and Mr. Montgomery were invited to discuss assessment appeals at council's committee on economic development and housing. Council is considering a motion proposed by Councilman Matt Drozd, R-Ross, asking the appeals board to make its operations more transparent.
While Ms. Lavelle and Mr. Montgomery were able to explain the basics of making appeals, they told committee members they could not answer questions on the methods assessors used to calculate the new property values.
First Published February 13, 2012 12:20 am
