Home Prices Leveling Off--at Last : Assessor’s Office Deserves Support to Avoid Future Crises

Orange County homeowners have been receiving welcome evidence that the drop in the home prices finally may have bottomed out.

Well over half the property tax bills mailed by the county assessor this month show an increase of 1.1% or less. True, that’s nowhere near the returns, sometimes in double digits, of bygone years. But it is far better than the plunge in property values of more recent years.

Also welcome was the news that because of an improving economy and help from the Board of Supervisors, the backlog of appeals of property tax levies has dropped from 61,000 cases last spring to 22,000 cases now.

Also on the decline has been the number of residents seeking appeals, reflecting the belief that the drop in property values may be about over.

Homeowners pay 1% of the purchase price as property tax, plus local levies. As the value of the house declines, so should the tax. But so many properties declined in Orange County during the recession that the assessor’s office was overwhelmed. In 1994, the office inadvertently let a two-year deadline for hearing appeals lapse. That cost the county about $1.6 million in lost tax revenue.

To prevent that from occurring again, the Board of Supervisors rightly established a third hearing appeals board and supported efforts to computerize the appeals scheduling system.

The assessor’s office suffered a hit last year when the bankruptcy led to the loss of several jobs in the office. Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs also went so far as to stop defending some of the property assessments made by his office if property owners disputed them. Jacobs argued he did not have the staff or money to handle the workload.

That sort of situation should not occur again. There will be another recession, though all hope it will not crop up any time soon. When the next slowdown comes, the county must be ready to respond, not shrug helplessly as owners appeal their property tax assessments.

The assessor’s office said it reviewed more than 400,000 individual valuations to determine if the owners deserved to see their tax bills go down. Homeowners are entitled to that. It is less cumbersome for both county staffers and property owners to get a bill that accurately reflects the worth of their land and building, rather than have to spend time, effort and money on an appeal.