Chattanooga Pulse

Written by Gary Poole
Friday, 30 January 2009 03:32

Following up on this week’s Pulse Beats story about the new property tax notices, Assessor Bill Bennett announced on Thursday that he and his office are giving disgruntled homeowners a 10-day extension to challenge their assessments. He appeared before the County Commission on Thursday morning and assured the board that his office was going to be “real flexible”. The commissioners have all be deluged with calls from angry constituents, upset that their appraisals have risen anywhere from 15 to 25 percent.

On average, about 10 percent of homeowners actually follow through on challenges, but this time around the response has been so strong that Bennett admitted the phone system in his office has been overwhelmed, which prompted him to extend the deadline for unhappy homeowners. What makes it worse for Bennett and his staff is that only the first batch of new appraisals have been mailed. Another 66,000 notices have yet to be delivered, and it’s very likely that a good number of those property owners are going to be equally unhappy.

As for the property tax rate itself, as we mentioned this week in our print edition, the count cannot take a “windfall” on property taxes (except for new construction), so once everything is settled, they’ll have to lower the base rate. Currently, it stands at $3.15 per $100 of assessed valuation. Commissioner Larry Henry estimated that it could drop as low as $2.70 per $100 of assessed valuation, but was warned by County Mayor Claude Ramsey not to speculate until all the appeals are heard and decided upon. Ramsey would know about this sort of thing, having once been an assessor himself.

For those that wish to challenge their new appraisal and haven’t done so yet, the procedure is fairly simple. Call the assessors office at (423) 209-7300 and arrange to meet with an assessor to review your property. After a review, they’ll send a letter out with either an adjustment or an explanation of why we feel the original assessment was correct. If you still aren’t satisfied, you can appeal to the Board of Equalization. If you still aren’t satisfied, you can take your appeal to court, though as far as Bennett can recall, that has only happened one time.