Only 9 percent of DeKalb County property owners appealed their 2011 tax appraisals. But in the Cedar Walk subdivision about one-third of the 106 homeowners are fighting to pay less property taxes because, they say, county numbers are wrong.
Nathan Kobrin, the president of the Cedar Walk Homeowners Association, noticed a discrepancy between the number of rooms and square footage county records say he owns and taxes him on compared to the numbers on his home closing documents.
"DeKalb County had me down for 212 square feet more than I actually have, and they were kind enough to give me an extra bathroom," Kobrin said with a hint of sarcasm.
So he warned neighbors, then helped many of them research the differences between county records and records created by their homebuilders. They found dozens of cases where the county overestimated square footage, including assigning homeowner Wilhemina Franklin four bedrooms rather than her three.
"We are not trying to deny DeKalb what is due to them, but the issue is fairness," she said. "We just want it to be right."
The mistakes are the latest woe to hit DeKalb’s appraisal system. The chief appraiser’s office had to review and reassess five large neighborhoods after homeowners complained their values plunged too far.
The system was also blamed for a wide gap between the $1.8 million sale price and $393,000 value that appraiser's office gave to wooded land the county recently agreed to buy for a park. The differences, in part, are because of changes in state laws aimed at holding down tax bills, which require actions such as appraising the lot as undeveloped land without including speculative value.
Chief Appraiser Calvin Hicks, in interviews as well as public meetings, has said he is aware of imperfections in assessments and blames human error, not intentional malfeasance.
“I am reasonably sure that there will be errors in our database. It does happen,” Hicks said. “I can assure you, though, there was no intentional attempt to hold values artificially high or artificially low.”
Kobrin thinks the appraisers favor the county after seeing multiple mistakes in his neighborhood.
"Not one mistake was made in favor of the homeowner," Kobrin said. "The mistakes were always in [the county's] favor. This is just wrong," he said.
New state laws require counties to send owners a notice of their property value every year, but it does not require appraisers to personally visit each site. Appraisers use a variety of methods to obtain square footage estimates, from personal visits and measurements on some properties to checking building permits and aerial photography.
The appraiser’s office has lost 19 jobs since 2009, and its 57 full-time workers do more work because of the yearly assessment. Previously, counties other than Cherokee got assessments when property values changed or at longer prescribed intervals.
State law also sides with appraisers, even if there is wrong information on the assessment. A statute calls for every owner to send back a property return yearly, confirming the county information is correct.
Very few property owners file returns, Hicks said. So, a second statue says that if owners pay their property taxes, they are deemed to have agreed with the assessment.
“Every property owner has some responsibility, too,” Hicks said. “That’s why we encourage people to appeal. Citizens certainly do know their property much better than I do.”
Kobrin is incensed that DeKalb gets it wrong and then makes residents prove it.
"How many people are going to go to DeKalb County's website and verify the information?" he asked.
"Catch me if you can, that is what they are playing," he said.
But a state report from last year suggests that the county is doing fair work. Homes are assessed at 40 percent of their value. The report by the state Department of Audits and Accounts found DeKalb’s assessments are on average 38.58 percent of property value, meaning they favor homeowners.
It will be some time before its clear how the 2011 values play out, though.
The appeals from Cedar Walk are among 14,000 residential appeals that will go to county Boards of Equalization for resolution. Hearings may begin in September, and owners under appeal pay only 85 percent of their taxes until the boards rule in their cases.
By the numbers
DeKalb
227,300 notices sent
19,636 appeals
8.84 percent appeal rate
Cobb
244,124 notices sent
10,849 appeals
4.4 percent appeal rate
Gwinnett
273,500 notices sent
31,162 appeals
11.39 percent appeal rate
Note: Fulton County is still waiting for its appeals
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