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Henderson County News

New assessed values go out Tuesday

Notice of new  values for every real property parcel in Henderson County go out Tuesday — the start of a weeks long process in which landowners and homeowners can appeal. "They will be mailed tomorrow" by a vendor in the Triangle, said Tax Assessor Darlene Burgess said Monday. "Based on past experience, we're expecting people will start receiving them Wednesday afternoon. Appeals could land anywhere from a trickle to a flood, although a roaring local real estate market suggests a flood is possible. The 2019 revaluation is expected to show a much higher percentage increase in home values than in 2015, especially for mid-priced homes. In the last reassessment four years ago Condo sales in 2018 were up by 4 percent, to $214,630, while single family homes on average rose from $288,847 to $300,044 — a 3.8 percent increase. Topping $300,000 on average, the sales price is "the highest we have ever had in Henderson County," broker Steve Dozier of Beverly-Hanks Realtors said. Those are year-over-year increases; the property assessment notices that go out this week will show the increase from the 2015 value to today's. "I imagine we’ll get some feedback but we’ve got a good system in place to address all the feedback we do receive,” Burgess said. “We’re trying to make this for the convenience of the taxpayers. The reappraisal is on the ground floor. We’ve taken the tax collectors office and allocated three of those windows to the appraisal staff.”Staffers will be able to handle basic questions, print out property cards of the parcel someone is asking about and help people find their parcel on tax maps if they choose, she said. “For those people that actually do need to talk to an appraiser we’ll have someone escort them to an appraiser,” she said. “They’ll talk about whatever their issue is and they’ll discuss it with an appraiser. We’ll have someone monitoring to make sure we keep the lines down as much as possible. We try to put ourselves in the taxpayers shoes.”If the state average of 10 percent of the assessments are appealed — the state average — the tax office could be looking at 6,600 phone calls or visits. Burgess says the staff will be ready.“We’re prepared for anything that comes our way,” she said. “We don’t know what to expect at this point. It could be much less.”Asked whether she has an average increase of the increase in the total taxable value compared to 2018, Burgess said the commissioners will hear that first.“I have to share that with commissioners,” she said. “That’s when all those percentages will be finalized.” The first step for taxpayers questioning the county's new value is to file an informal appeal using the form included in the Notice of Assessed Value. (You can also get a form at the tax office or on line.) After an appraiser reviews the informal appeal, the tax office will mail the result to the property owner. An appeal could result in the assessed value “being left unchanged, reduced or increased,” the county tax office says. The next step if the property owner is unsatisfied is to file a formal appeal with the county Board of Equalization & Review. The Board of Equalization & Review will meet as needed from April 15 to May 15. An appeal from the local board goes to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission. Appeals from the state Tax Commission go to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court.     Read Story »

Henderson County News

Reappraisal Q&A (2)

Why does the county reappraise property? North Carolina law requires counties to reappraise all real property once every eight years but allows reappraisal once every four years. Since 1995, Henderson County has conducted a reappraisal every four years. The county must assess 68,000 parcels. The effective date of the reappraisal is Jan. 1, 2019. Who is responsible for the reappraisal? The assessor, not the Board of Commissioners, is responsible for establishing the assessed value of property; the commissioners, not the assessor, sets the tax rate.N.C. law requires counties to assess real property at its “true value in money, meaning market value.” The assessor sets market value based on “the most recent qualified sale” near the appraisal date. Sales between family members and other non-arm’s length transactions are excluded. Fair market value is what a house or other piece of property would sell for between a willing seller and “a financially able buyer.” How does the assessor establish the value? Henderson County uses a “mass appraisal” process that groups similar properties together based on location, type of construction, age, replacement cost, advantages and disadvantages, zoning and other factors. For property such as apartments or offices, the assessor may base the value on net operating income. The market approach takes into account an arm’s length sale of similar properties. Are there exceptions? Yes. The taxable value is lower when the owner is enrolled in the Present-Use Value Program for farm, horticulture or forestry use. There are also tax relief programs for the elderly, disabled and disabled veterans. Among uses exempt from property taxes are churches and other religious property, schools, nonprofit agencies and government buildings. When will I get my Notice of Assessed Value? It will be mailed on Feb. 12. Can I appeal? Yes. The first step is to file an informal appeal using the form included in your Notice of Assessed Value. (You can also get a form at the tax office or on line.) After an appraiser reviews the informal appeal, the tax office will mail the result to the property owner. An appeal could result in the assessed value “being left unchanged, reduced or increased.” The next step if the property owner is unsatisfied is to file a Formal Appeal with the county Board of Equalization & Review. The Board of Equalization & Review will meet as needed from April 15 to May 15. An appeal from the local board goes to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission. Appeals from the state Tax Commission go to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court. What are grounds for appeal? The assessed value exceeds or is substantially below market value or the property “has been appraised inequitably as it relates to the market value of comparable properties.” Reasons that are not grounds for an adjustment include the percentage change from the previous value, actual construction cost, the amount of taxes due, financial ability to pay taxes, insurance value or liquidation or salvage value. Does the reappraisal apply in all taxing districts? Yes. Cities and fire districts do not assess property for tax purposes. The county collects taxes for the fire districts and the part of the town of Saluda in Henderson County. Hendersonville, Fletcher, Laurel Park, Flat Rock and Mills River set their own tax rate and bill and collect property taxes in the municipality. Will the county publish a revenue neutral tax rate? Yes, by state law it has to. The revenue neutral rate is the tax rate the county would impose to produce the same amount of revenue it would have received had no reappraisal had occurred. In practice, that means if the gross taxable value of all real property goes up by, say, 10 percent, the revenue neutral rate would be lower than the current tax rate (56.5 cents per $100 value) by a corresponding amount. The Board of Commissioners, not the assessor, establishes the revenue neutral rate. Does the Board of Commissioners have to adopt the revenue neutral tax rate? No, it can adopt a lower or higher rate. When will the Board of Commissioners and cities set the tax rate for their 2019-2020 budgets? By June 30, 2019. When will I get my property tax bill? The bills are mailed in August and become due on Sept. 1, 2019. Property owners have until Jan. 5, 2020, to pay the property tax bill without interest. * * * * * Sources: Henderson County Guide to 2019 Reappraisal, interviews.             Read Story »

Henderson County News

Council OKs talks for six-story hotel on Dogwood lot

The Hendersonville City Council made a big stride to attract a hotel downtown when it selected a Fletcher-based hospitality management company on Thursday to develop a six-story facility on the Dogwood parking lot on North Church Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

KnollsCam: Young bobcat enthusiastically scent-marks tree

A young bobcat spent 3 minutes scent-marking a tree at Thomas Brass's "stage" for wildlife in the woods on top of Haywood Knolls.   Read Story »

Hendersonville News

City renews request for county funding of SROs

The Hendersonville City Council is asking the county to fund four school resource officers the four county schools in the city limits, renewing (and revising) a request the Board of Commissioners rejected a year ago.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

'American Experience' profiles George Bond's Sealab role

George Bond Sr. was known throughout Henderson County and especially Bat Cave for bringing health care to unserved isolated pockets of the mountains. Less is known of his role in the 1950s and 1960s in the development of Sealab, a U.S. Navy research station that sought to explore the depths of the ocean the way NASA was exploring space. Until now.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Contractor in Buncombe County scandal pleads guilty

Joseph F. Wiseman Jr., a contractor whose dealings with Buncombe County led to the indictment of three top county officials, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a conspiracy charge for his role in a bribery scheme. Wiseman, 58, of Roswell, Georgia, was the agent and contractor on behalf of three businesses that collectively obtained more than $15 million in contracts with Buncombe County for consulting and engineering services from the mid 1980s through 2017, U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray said. John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division; Director Robert Schurmeier of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI); and Matthew D. Line, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, Charlotte Field Office (IRS-CI), join Murray in making today’s announcement. Court records show that from at least 2014 through June 30, 2018, Wiseman engaged in a bribery scheme involving three top Buncombe County Officials: former County Manager Wanda Skillington Greene; former Director of the Department of Planning and Development Jon Eugene Creighton; and former Director of the Department of Social Services, Assistant County Manager, and later Buncombe County Manager, Amanda Stone (collectively, “County Officials”).According to court documents, the plea agreement, and statements made in court, Greene, Creighton, and Stone engaged in the bribery scheme with Wiseman and used their official positions to enrich and benefit themselves by soliciting and accepting gifts, payments, and other things of value from Wiseman, in exchange for awarding Wiseman and the companies he represented with lucrative county contracts and projects. Court records show that Wiseman understood and agreed that providing the trips, gifts, and other things of value to the three County Officials was a necessary condition for his companies to continue to obtain contracts with the County.According to court records, prior to 2014, Greene, Creighton, and Stone went on trips that were connected in some way with legitimate county business, but during which Wiseman provided things of value such as meals, wine, tickets to sporting events, and other excursions. By 2014, the County Officials solicited and accepted valuable gifts from Wiseman that were entirely unrelated to any legitimate County business. For example, Wiseman paid for pleasure trips to various locations within the United States and abroad, including to Key West, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Napa Valley, San Diego, Vienna, Budapest, Cartagena, and Vancouver, among others. In addition to lodging and airfare, during those trips Wiseman also paid for sightseeing excursions, spa sessions, and gift shop purchases, such as cases of wine from the Napa Valley vineyards that the County Officials visited. To pay for the trips and other incidentals, Wiseman either provided the County Officials with his credit card number, or, as in Creighton’s case, the credit card itself.As a result of receiving the above-cited things of value, Greene and Creighton awarded on behalf of Buncombe County multiple contracts worth over $2 million to Wiseman’s company, Environmental Infrastructure Consulting, LLC (EIC). According to the filed factual basis statement to which Wiseman agreed during the entry of his guilty plea, Wiseman contends that the expenses he incurred by providing these trips, gifts, and other things of value to the County Officials came out of what otherwise would have been part of the his own profit, rather than from any type of “padding” or inflating of the contract amounts. However, Wiseman did agree that he provided the valuable gifts for the purpose of influencing Greene, Creighton, and Stone’s decision to award the contracts, and, in doing so, Wiseman conspired with the County Officials to deprive the Government and the citizens of Buncombe County of their right to the honest services of those employees.Wiseman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carleton Metcalf. The maximum penalty for the charge is five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. A sentencing date has not been set.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Drug squad seizes half pound of meth

The Henderson County Sheriff’s Office Drug Enforcement Team and Crime Suppression Unit seized a half pound of methamphetamine after a traffic stop on U.S. Highway 25 South in the Tuxedo community on Wednesday, the sheriff's office said.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Don't miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning (203)

You won't want to miss this week’s Hendersonville Lightning.   Read Story »

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