The subprime mortgage crisis began when housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. On December 30, 2008, the Case–Shiller home price index reported the largest price drop in its history. The credit crisis resulting from the bursting of the housing bubble is an important cause of the Great Recession in the United States.
When the worldwide financial crises upended the banking and real estate markets, the County chose to not update the 2008 Reassessment Year FMV’s until 2013 – a year later than scheduled, claiming the available software was not available. No other County in Virginia used this excuse. The county did not engage an outside consulting firm as it did in 2004 and 2008 for a County-wide reassessment – choosing instead in 2013 to use an employee of the Appraiser’s office who based the work on the 2008 Wingate analysis from a Mass Appraisal approach.
During the intervening years, the County Treasurer chose not to annually update the FMV of all taxable properties in the County, on January 1st of each year – as required by State Statute. The State Department of Taxation was sending an annual report to all Counties (and Towns and Cities that taxed properties as well) showing the ratio of tax assessments to actual sales.
The ratios for Northampton County were askew from 2008 through 2013 as sales were way under assessment values.
Why did the County and its Supervisors choose not to reduce by law the FMV’s and modify the rate rates, which they are allowed to perform?
A Mirror reader has noted in an email that it may be due to the bond debt issuance on the County’s new Jail complex (underutilized and therefore underperforming as revenues would not be forthcoming without sufficient incarcerated individuals housed in the regional jail), created the unforeseen opportunity that the bond indebtedness covenants would fall into default if the County could not maintain its revenue stream from County real estate property taxes to pay the bond indebtedness. Website details from NHC below:
The Eastern Shore Regional Jail is a 248-bed facility that houses minimum to maximum security male and female offenders. The Jail is maintained and operated to safely and securely house pre-trial, pre-sentenced, and sentenced inmates primarily from both Northampton and Accomack Counties. In addition to housing local inmates, the jail may accept inmates from other jurisdictions.
In May 2007, the 85,500-square-foot facility was opened to replace the 93-year-old, 30-bed Northampton County Jail. The state-of-the-art facility was built to meet the current and future correctional needs of the Eastern Shore. All areas of the main interior and exterior are monitored by security cameras and the control rooms are equipped to control everything in the housing units from doors, lights, and cameras to telephones and televisions. The jail has its own full-service Kitchen, Laundry, and Medical departments as well as Administrative Offices and an on-site Magistrate’s Office.
The 24-hour facility is operated by the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office, employs 53 people, and is currently the largest department in the county government.
The Mirror has been attempting to reconcile the County’s actions, but as of this publishing has not been able to locate any evidence of the Board of Supervisors meeting agenda and Minutes describing or held to discuss this decision? The Mirror has queries in with the county, but no data has been forwarded to us.
How many people were impacted by the reassessment decision?
I sold my house. Moving to Cheriton. Sad situation in cape charles.
The question is not how many people, but how many parcels of land, homes (pre-fabricated or mobile home lots) were impacted. All of them!
The Board of Supervisors or County Executives’ version of events that the software was not available is a DECEITFUL NARRATIVE. Illegal on its face and contributed to the overall mistrust of County government with the ill-gotten gains also enjoyed by the Town of Cape Charles. (The Town also received the Virginia Department of Taxation annual reports clearly showing that the tax assessed values were overstated by the accuracy of reported numerous sales of property within the Town and County).
The real version of events is UNJUST ENRICHMENT. (Look up that definition, Board of Supervisors, past and present, and yes the Town Council Members of Cape Charles. Shame on all of you who took advantage of every owner impacted by overassessed taxes caused by the repeated failure of the County government and its legal minions by allowing both the false and deceitful narrative being published, implemented, and never corrected. If it wasn’t the jail bond debt covenants, what is the true story, And why not now, tell the truth.
Just to clarify, the County Treasurer does not assess any property. The Treasurer collects payment for that which has been assessed.
Cindy, Thank you for you responsive comment. But your comment may add confusion to the issues addressed herein. Here is what the Northampton County website states:
“The Northampton County Tax Assessor is responsible for setting property tax rates and collecting owed property tax on real estate located in Northampton County. The Northampton County Property Appraiser is responsible for determining the taxable value of each piece of real estate, which the Tax Assessor will use to determine the owed property tax.“
So, does the Treasurer collect the tax or does the employee, the Tax Assessor collect the tax?
Further, the issue that is discussed is why did Northampton County (its elected officials and executives) refuse to abide by the Virginia State Statute requiring annual (first of January of each year, not the Reassessment Years) resetting of Fair Market Values for assessing taxes) for ALL property within Northampton County, Virginia? What the Mirror has perhaps uncovered is the DECEITFUL NARRATIVE that an imagined (fraudulent intentional) lie that ‘Mass Appraisal” software was not available. If the Mirror is correct, then the County lied to its real estate tax payers, and the Town achieved unjust enrichment as a party to the inflated tax assessed values from the years of the real estate tax crisis that confronted all property owners in Northampton County and the Town of Cape Charles.
See the Virginia State Statute below:
§ 58.1-3281. When commissioner of the revenue to ascertain ownership of real estate; tax year.
Each commissioner of the revenue shall commence, annually, on January 1, and proceed without delay to ascertain all the real estate in his county or city, as the case may be, and the person to whom the same is chargeable with taxes on that day. The beginning of the tax year for the assessment of taxes on real estate shall be January 1 and the owner of real estate on that day shall be assessed for the taxes for the year beginning on that day.
Code 1950, §§ 58-796, 58-810; 1984, c. 675.