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.
