In North Carolina, state law requires the valuation of real estate and an adjustment of real estate tax bills every eight years. Many things can happen in those eight years. Indeed, the assessed value can be appealed. In Chatham County, the analytics are right about 90% of the time. The rest of the time, the valuation isn’t consistent with what market value is. For example, I recently sold a home for $975,000 but the tax valuation was a couple hundred thousand less than that. On the other hand, I’ve had land tracts that the county values at a couple hundred thousand dollars that have sold for close to a million dollars.
So, tax valuation can be appealed. The last time we did appeals in Chapel County, about 10% of the property owners appealed their real estate taxes. Of that 10%, the county lowered the valuation of the property 90% of the time. The county didn’t lower it very much, but the property owners got the win. It can go the other way though, and the county can raise the real estate tax valuation. It’s rare, but it can happen.
