Finney Law Firm’s attorneys  are experienced practitioners before the Boards of Revision throughout Ohio and the property valuation administrators of Kentucky to challenge the valuation of real property — thus resulting in a reduction of real estate taxes.

March 31 is the statutory deadline each year in Ohio to file a challenge to the valuation of real property.  If you miss that deadline, you must wait until the next tax year, and tax refunds for over-valued property only cover the current tax year.  Thus, a missed deadline is a missed potential refund of taxes.

If you desire for Finney Law Firm to analyze the valuation of your real property for a possible reduction, please contact Christopher P. Finney at 513-943-6655 for a free preliminary assessment.

Next week, Christopher Finney will present “Reducing your property taxes” in two forums:

1) The consistently ground-breaking Empower-U lecture series will host Christopher Finney at Connections Christian Church, 7421 East Galbraith Road, on Tuesday, February 24, from 7 to 8:30 PM.  You can register and read about all of their course offerings for the Spring here.

2) Cincinnati Realtor Ellie Kowalchik and Summit Funding’s Aaron Denton team up for an informative evening on Thursday, February 26, from 6:30 to 8 PM at the Oasis Conference Center, Loveland, Ohio.  You may RSVP by emailing Ellie at [email protected] by February 18th.

All are invited to each of these courses.  We look forward to seeing you there!

The Ohio legislature has provided for significantly reduced property tax valuation (and thus, reduced property taxes) for property used for qualifying agricultural purposes.  This is referred to in the Ohio Revised Code as “Current Agricultural Use Valuation” and is shorted as “CAUV.”  This reduction is embodied at O.R.C Section 5713.31.

However, when the owner of property subject to such reduced valuation changes its use from a qualified agricultural use, Ohio Revised Code Sections 5713.34 and .35 provide that the savings for the past three years are to be recouped.  This can be a whopping one-time tax bill!

Further,  the recoupment is a lien against the real estate retroactive to the first of the year in which the change of use occurs.  Thus, when a change of use occurs in conjunction with a transfer of real estate, the buyer and seller need to carefully allocate between themselves the amount of such CAUV recoupment.

Because the seller received the benefit of the reduction; but it is the buyer’s change of use that is causing the CAUV recoupment to become due, it is not always understood between the parties who should bear this expense.

A buyer will be “stuck” with this CAUV recoupment charge as a lien against his property.  It is prudent for parties, Realtors and attorneys to assure the issue is addressed between the parties in the contract and at the closing, to avoid an unpleasant and expensive post-closing surprise.

In NDHMD, Inc. v. Cuyahoga County Board of Revision, et al., 2015-Ohio-174, the Eighth District Court of Appeals reviewed the finding by the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court that the surplus land auction conducted by the Cuyahoga County Auditor constituted an arm’s length transaction.

In 2009, the County Treasurer foreclosed on a property for delinquent taxes. Two attempts at auction failed, resulting in the property being turned over to the state. In March, 2010, the County Auditor placed the property for sale as part of a surplus land auction. The auction was conducted on March 24. One week later (but prior to the filing of the executed deed) the winning bidder (at $1,500) filed a challenge to the property valuation with the Board of Revision.

At the Board of Revision, the value was reduced from $963,300 to $444,720. The owner appealed that decision to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, which upheld the BOR decision. The owner then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which ruled that because the challenge to the BOR was filed prior to the recording of the deed, the owner did not have standing to bring the challenge and dismissed the complaint (returning the value back to $963,300).

During the same triennial, the owner filed a new challenge for tax year 2011. Having satisfied the jurisdictional requirement of recorded ownership, the owner now faced the statutory prohibition against bringing two challenges in the same triennial absent an exception (one of which is an intervening arm’s length sale).

The Auditor argued that the surplus auction sale is not an arm’s length transaction.

Relying on the Ohio Supreme Court ruling in Olentangy Local Schools Bd. of Edn. v. Delaware Cty. Bd. of Revision, Slip Opinion No.2014–Ohio–4723, the Cuyahoga Court of Appeals found that, while an auction sales price is presumably not a voluntary, arm’s length transaction, this presumption can be rebutted.

Supporting the finding that the transaction was arm’s length was the fact that the county auditor had not been compelled to auction the property; that two prior auctions had failed, resulting in the property being transferred to the state; that the auction had been advertised; and that there were multiple bidders.

The finding that the auction constituted an arm’s length transaction was crucial for two reasons in this case. First, because NDHMD had filed a prior challenge to the value of the property (that had been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds), the sale provided an opportunity to bring the challenge at all. Second, as an arm’s length transaction, under the applicable law (since amended) the County Auditor was required to use the sale price as the true value of the property.

The final result is that a property that the County Auditor had valued at $963,300.00 was given a new value of $1,500.00, at least for the remainder of that triennial (in the most recent triennial, 2012, the value was adjusted to $170,100).

Notwithstanding the results in this case, the Court was clear that the general presumption remains that an auction price is not the true value for tax purposes.

Have a question about the County Auditor and Board of Revision Valuation Process? Contact Anna Ausman at (513) 943-6651.

 

Residential and commercial Realtors from throughout Cincinnati today attended “Property Tax Valuation Reduction” at the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors taught by Chris Finney and Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes.

Finney and Rhodes have hosted the three-hour class for the past six years together, and it is always well-attended.  The class covers specifics of Ohio property taxation in detail, as well as addresses the mechanics of the tax valuation reduction process before Ohio’s 88 Boards of Revision and the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals.

Mr. Finney will be teaching further 1-hour free classes on the topic on February 24 and 26 for members of the general public.  More details on those classes will follow.

 

Since our firm assists property owners in reducing the taxes on their real property by challenging the valuation placed by the County Auditor on that property, we are frequently asked “is my property valuation too high?”  Indeed, we provide a free initial assessment of property valuation to ascertain if savings might be available through the Board of Revision process.

As a starting point, “tax valuation” should follow the simple formula of “what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller for the property.”  The Boards of Revision of Ohio largely follow the same rules marketplace participants follow: Valuation should reflect the actual value.

Two fallacies about valuation:

1)  Many owners think their property must be over-valued if they experienced a significant increase in valuation from the prior triennial.  This simply is not true.  It is entirely possible the property was — and still is — significantly under-valued.  Just because a property experienced a significant — or above market average — increase in valuation means nothing.  The new valuation is compared to current parker, not prior valuation.

2)  Many property owners want to compare their Auditor’s valuation to that of their neighbors’ property.  But this is a false comparison.  What the Auditor thinks your neighbor’s property is worth is simply not evidence of value before the Board of Revision.  Comparable sales in your neighborhood, or new construction data is appropriate evidence.

 

Property owners in Hamilton, Butler and Clermont Counties, as well as major metropolitan areas in Ohio Montgomery County (Dayton), Franklin County (Columbus) and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) all have new Auditor’s valuations on their January 2015 tax bills.  (New values will be out in Warren County next January.)  In those counties, the County Auditor has just completed its triennial (every three years) valuation for each parcel in their jurisdiction.

The new valuations, effective as of January 1, 2014, may all be challenged in a proceeding before the County Board of Revision this year, even if you previously challenged that valuation.  One of the benefits of winning a tax reduction is that the savings is guaranteed to last for at least three years, and it may well endure much longer than that.

The attorneys of the Finney Law Firm have handled thousands of tax valuation appeals, some involving tens of millions of dollars of savings, over the past decade before more than half of the Boards of Revision throughout Ohio.

Please call Anna Ausman ([513] 943-6653) for a free initial evaluation of your property to ascertain if savings may be available to you.

Attorney Christopher Finney is teaching “Reducing your property taxes in Ohio” on January 21 from 9 to noon before the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors.  Finney is joined in the presentation by Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes.

The two of them have annually taught this class to the Board of Realtors each of the last six years.

This piece from the Northland News summarizes the results of the Board of Revision work before the Franklin County (Columbus) Board of Revision this past year and a peek at 2015.    Two snippets:

  1. In 2011, a little more than half of the property owners seeking lower adjustments saw some movement toward the amount they considered to be an accurate value.
  2. During the 2014 triennial update, property values in central Ohio trended downward overall.

Our firm continues to practice in this area successfully.  If we can help you with a 2015 valuation, please call Anna Ausman at 943-6651.

It was one of the more unusual chapters in our firm’s public interest law practice.  Tuesday night in a vote before Maple Heights Council. that battle ended.

In July and August, a group of citizen volunteers in the small northeast Ohio City of Maple Heights followed the procedures set forth in the Ohio Constitution, gathering signatures of 10% of the electorate in that burb to place before the voters a Charter Amendment that would ban red light and speeding cameras.

The petitions met the complicated and exacting requirements of the Ohio Constitution and the Ohio Revised Code, and the additional requirements set forth in the Maple Heights Charter, for ballot access.  Indeed, they collected nearly twice the minimum number of signatures required.

Immediately upon turn-in of the petitions, the haughty City Law Director announced that the City would refuse to place the issue on the ballot.  His reasoning?  The matter is currently before the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio General Assembly, and “they should decide,” not local voters.

Finney Law Firm attorneys wrote a taxpayer demand letter, a sort of warning letter: If you don’t act, we will sue.  The Law Director continued to thumb his nose at the local taxpayers.

We took the matter to the Ohio Supreme Court in a Mandamus action.  The Court accepted briefing.  The City’s defense before the Court?  Well, we never said we would not put the issue on the ballot, we just have not had adequate time to think about it just yet.

Within 24 hours of the conclusion of briefing, last Friday the Court issued the Mandamus and ordered the Council to follow the Constitution by voting “forthwith” to place the issue on the November ballot.

That vote finally occurred Tuesday night, and on Wednesday the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections certified the matter to the ballot as Issue 99.

Maple Heights voters will have a chance to ban Red Light and Speeding Cameras on the November 4 ballot.