County Assessors Meeting 4/24/12
Report by Pat Morlan
A group of citizens met with the Sandoval County Assessor Tom Garcia on April 24, 2012 for a briefing on the upcoming reappraisal effort that will analyze current market value of all properties in Sandoval County. Assessor’s office has 30 people working in it and 149,000 properties to assess.
Reappraisal
Reappraisals will start this summer all county employees will have an ID a shirt and a ball cap denoting them. The assessor will ring your doorbell to let you know they are there. They are doing this first to get all their data onto one computer. We have not reappraised homes in only heaven knows when. This reappraisal will not generate huge amounts of money it will only bring us up to date. The appraisers are verifying, square footage, house style, amount of land any new additions. They are not looking at landscaping. They are looking at refrigerated air-vs.-swamp coolers. They will only assess heated areas. The information will not be on the web till 2014. The assessors will leave a card letting you know that they were there. The card should let you know the date and the name of the assessor. You should come in when this is over to check and see if they were accurate.
Information on line
You can now go to the Sandoval County website and go to the Assessors Section the majority of the Assessors information is on line with the exception of your property record card. The property record card (report card) property appraisals details used in determining a property’s value. Eventually all these records will be on the web.
How to access this information
Go to www.sandovalcounty.com then go to assessor’s office click on it. You can look at your property records your tax etc…. This site is very nicely set up and easy to use. All the forms you need are on line and can easily be downloaded. Some forms you can fill out on line then print out.
There will be a tab for Reappraisal Information. You will be able to look at the maps and see where they are working and what they have done. There are tax calculators that can give you an Idea of what taxes you might be paying.
Facts and definitions:
The Sandoval County Assessor’s Office determine the property value of homes, businesses and other taxable properties within the county for ad valorem tax purposes. The office also prepares the tax rolls for the County Treasurer for real property (land and improvements), personal property (business equipment), livestock and mobile homes.
The Assessor’s office lists and maintains the records of all real and business personal property located in Sandoval County. The office mails notices of property valuation, assists taxpayers in claiming exemption and maintains correct property ownership based on documents filed with the County Clerk’s office.
Notices of property valuation: it is the Assessor’s intent to mail a Notice of Value by March 1st of each tax year; however the property tax code requires mailing by April 1st of each year. It is important that property owners review the valuation figures on the Notice of Value, because this is the last step in the review process. The value on the notice is what will be used to calculate the taxes you will pay after your local government agencies and school districts set their budgets and the tax rates are adopted.
County appraisers review the real estate data and add new property to continue updating the values of existing land and buildings. Taxable value on real and property is one third of the total appraised value, minus any allowable exemptions, such as head-of-household or veteran’s exemptions. The net taxable value is then multiplied by the tax rate to determine the actual taxes property owners are billed. Property in New Mexico is classified as residential or non-residential and is taxed at different rates.
The Assessor’s Mapping Department works closely with property owners, title companies, the County Clerk’s Office and other agencies to compile and maintain updated information on properties in the County. Information is available on legal descriptions, acreage and boundary lines on survey plats and other recorded documents. The primary responsibility of the mapping department is to maintain the county’s property inventory by using the latest in technology. (The above information was taken from the assessor’s website.)
Market Value: The Market Value is set by buyers and sellers
Taxable value: is one-third of the total assessed value minus qualifying exemptions such as head of household or veteran. The taxable value is used to calculate the tax you pay to Sandoval County, State government, debt service bonds, school districts, cities in municipal areas and other agencies.
The notice of valuation: informs you of the value of your property for that year. It is mailed in the spring of each year. It is not a tax bill. A tax bill from the Treasurer’s office based on your property’s net taxable value will be mailed by November 1st of each year. It is very important that you review the Notice of Value because that is the valuation amount that is used to ultimately determine the amount of property tax you will pay. Remember that when one person’s taxes get lowered another gets raised.
How do we determine our market?
We look at the Market areas that have homes that are similar to your homes quality of design components and factor in your homes amount of depreciation. Every sale in the neighborhood gives us price per square foot. Then all the homes in the neighborhood are assessed by the sale homes cost per square foot. If no home is similar in your neighborhood they will look at homes from all over the county. This is what is called the good market.
Arm’s length is the Foreclosures this is a weighted market. We do this every two years. Our values should not change for the next two years.
Assessed value is public knowledge but not the sale price of the home. You cannot use assessed value as evidence because of the 3% tax increase if you live in your house longer your assessment might be less than your neighbors. We want to bring everyone up to equal and then cap the tax increases.
Other information:
If you give your land to a family member there is no tax lighting.
“Marshal Swift” gives the current value of homes anywhere in the world. You can go on line to this company and check your home out.
The statement “Remember that when one person’s taxes get lowered another gets raised, from “The notice of valuation” section is wrong! If housing values are depressed then property taxes should reflect that but not here in Sandoval county. Instead of property taxes reflecting the market, the assessed value remains the same; meaning they do business as usual, while people loose their homes. If government can expand as the economy expands then they must decrease as the economy decreases but that never happens.
County operations tax rate increased from 5.253 to 5.621 to keep doing business even though the tax basis income decreased. Spending money is government’s drug and the more they spend the more the are addicted to that drug until there is no accountability.
Now the county wants to treat each home as though it were recently sold on the market. For those who have owned homes for some time and their taxes have been capped at the max of 3% per year, the county now wants to erase that law and reevaluate your home on current values, because they can now tax you more. Greed and avarice is what drives these decisions and what the county plans on doing should border on illegal. This is nothing more than a ruse to increase your property taxes….
What really made taxes go up was what the voters voted for a couple of years ago. The two items were for operating new hospitals in Rio Rancho and flood control ESCAFCA. My property taxes went up 50%, makes reapprasial look like play time!
No wonder they continue to need additional funds, with County Management spending over $264,000 for un-needed (and, to a degree, un-wanted!) road work in Placitas, especially when they can’t seem to fund the 911 dispatch center upgrades…
We were told that our properties would NOT be re-appraised because of these newly paved roads. Now we know why: They were going to re-appraise our properties anyway!
I should clarify my prior comment: Road maintenance WAS needed, as all the County did for the last 10 years was to blade the road. All of the base course was long gone. The paving of these roads is what was not needed.