The late former Guilford County Commissioner Carolyn Coleman once complained to Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis at a commissioners meeting that she didn’t feel like the Tax Department was assessing the homes in her area high enough. She said she thought that he should look into that.  Just about everyone in the meeting room looked at her like she was crazy because, while you want your house to be worth a lot, you certainly don’t want the Tax Department to think it is.

That, of course, is because the higher the assessed value of your property, the more money you hand over to the Guilford County Tax Department every year.

Guilford County conducted a revaluation of all the property in the county in 2022 and, according to Chavis, the values listed with the Tax Department are now much, much less than the actual sales value.  In fact, he said this week, on average, the listed property value for tax purposes is currently only 69 percent of the actual market value.

That’s good and that’s bad.

 That’s good because it means the prices of most homes and other property have skyrocketed since 2022; however, it’s bad because it means that, after the next revaluation, you are likely to be paying much more in property taxes, and it will be one more year in which the Board of Commissioners will have access to a brand new infusion of money to spend.

And, of course, they will point out as they spend that money, that they didn’t raise the tax rate that year.

After the 2022 reval, the Democratic-majority board saw about $92 million in “extra” money because, when the new property values were presented to the board, the board did not adjust the tax rate lower to keep the county’s finances “revenue neutral.”  Instead, they allowed a “hidden” tax increase on property owners that didn’t stay hidden for long because, once people got their tax bills, they realized they were paying 25 or 30 percent more than they were previously paying.

The other bad news is that it was obvious one year after the 2022 revaluation that the property values didn’t really capture how much the value of property in the county had increased. That means that the next revaluation will be conducted earlier than usual.

 After each countywide revaluation of property, the Tax Department is required to look at actual market sales of property and see how those prices compare with the values assessed by the Tax Department.  If the assessed values are too low (or too high), then the county must conduct a do-over – and that’s the situation for Guilford County: The state of North Carolina is requiring Guilford County to hold another revaluation sooner than called for by the county’s revaluation cycle, which would have meant another revaluation in 2027.

Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis gave that news to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners at a budget work session in June of 2023, when he informed the commissioners that he would need to add more positions in the fiscal 2023-2024 budget so the department could get started immediately on the required re-revaluation effort, which will now take place in 2026.

Every county in the state is required to assess the value of all land, houses, businesses and other real property in the county at least once every eight years. Those valuations determine the tax values of those properties and, along with the tax rate, form the basis for the tax bills sent out to property owners each year.

After every revaluation, counties in North Carolina must take a sample of assessed values and compare them to the actual sales values of homes, land and other real property that has sold. If on average the assessed value is less than 85 percent of the actual sale value, or more than 115 percent above the sale value, state law forces the county to conduct a new revaluation.

The study of sales prices last year found that Guilford County property that had sold was assessed at about 80 percent of the sales value.  Since currently the values are at only 69 percent of listed values, that means that most people are going to see another hefty tax increase in a couple of years.

The current Board of Commissioners could always, after that revaluation, hold the county revenue-neutral by lowering the tax rate to a level that keeps the tax bills at the current level, however, the existing board has for years, approved just about every program, raise, donation and request that has come before it – and they also now have to pay off the debt on a $2 billion school bond, plus interest, at interest rates that are higher than planned when the giant school bond referendum passed.

The Republican-led board that ran the county before the current Democratic-led board took over four years ago did adjust the county’s tax rate downward to keep the county in revenue-neutral status when the countywide revaluation came in with higher property values than the previous revaluation.

 It takes tax departments a good deal of time to ramp up for revals, which is why Chavis has been hiring staff to prepare.

Chavis told the board in 2023 that 22 counties in the state were having to hold early revaluations due to the requirement in state law.

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