Huntington County property owners can expect to learn the new assessed value of their properties within the next few days.
Huntington County Assessor Terri Boone says the notices were mailed out on Friday, July 6.
The mailing represents formal notification to property owners of the new assessed value of their properties, the result of a reassessment that took place between July 1, 2010, and March 1, 2012, Boone explains.
The amount of taxes assessed to the property is not included on the notice and cannot be calculated at this time because tax rates have not yet been determined, she adds. The assessments will form the basis of 2012 tax bills, which are payable in 2013.
Property owners who want to contest the new assessed value have until Aug. 20 to do so. Appeal forms are available online at www.huntington.in.us, under the county assessor page.
During the reassessment process, someone visited every parcel of property in Huntington County. All structures on the property were remeasured, checked for accurate descriptions and labels and verified for proper use.
New land rates, new cost tables and new depreciation schedules have been adopted by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance and became effective as of March 1 of this year. Those factors will be reflected in the new assessments.
Boone lists other factors that may have played a role in a higher or lower assessed values:
• All mobile or manufactured homes that do not have permanent foundations are now being assessed as personal property. That means that the taxpayer will receive two bills for 2012-pay-2013 - one bill for the mobile home and a second bill for the land and any other improvements or buildings on the property.
Any mobile or manufactured home that does have a permanent foundation will now be assessed as a one-story residence over a crawl space or basement.
• Because of a change in Indiana code, the taxes on any improvements on a parcel of leased ground will be assessed to the person who owns the land, not to the person who leases the land.
• Land will be assessed as agricultural property only when the land is producing a crop. A garden is not considered crop land. Any land not being farmed will be assessed according to its use, which could include residential excess acreage, commercial or industrial ground.
In addition, the base rate for agricultural land has been increased to $1,630 per acre.
Owners of any agricultural land in a special program, such as CRP, wetland preserve or forest reserve, which has not been recorded, should inform the county assessor's office as soon as possible.
Complete captio n:
Jill Zorger (left), a deputy in the Huntington County assessor's office, and Assessor Terri Boone stand with stacks of reassessment notices that are being mailed out to every property owner in Huntington County. The notices contain new property values based on a two-year reassessment project.
