Virginia Lawyers Weekly

An Accomack County judge has rejected a challenge to real estate assessments in the county brought under a seldom-used law.
Virginia Code § 58.1-3003 requires a commonwealth’s attorney to appeal “an order for the imposition of taxes” by a local governing body if he receives a petition signed by one percent of the voters in a locality.

Residents who believed that property values from the first county-wide reassessment in four years were too high and inconsistent filed such a petition with Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary A. Agar.

Agar turned the matter over to an assistant, Matthew C. Brenner, who filed the challenge contending that Tyler should throw out the tax levy because of errors in the reassessment conducted by Tri-County Appraisals Inc.

County Attorney Mark B. Taylor responded that the statute applies only to the tax levy and not to assessments. The levy might be subject to challenge if the board of supervisors had failed to follow the procedure state law requires in setting the tax rate, such as imposing a rate that would collect more than 101 percent of the previous year’s real estate taxes without holding a public hearing, Taylor argued.

But the remedy of a taxpayer for what he views as an inaccurate assessment of his property is an appeal to the county board of equalization, Taylor contended.

Circuit Judge Glen Tyler agreed with Taylor. “The Code of Virginia provides specific remedies for relief from assessment,” the judge said. “Assessments are not levies.”

A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow in New Kent County Circuit Court on a petition filed under the same law.

Commonwealth’s Attorney C. Linwood Gregory filed the appeal as required by state law but filed a motion to withdraw because he does not believe that he has a good faith basis for contending that the state can be used “to assail reassessment of real property as lacking in uniformity and fair market value.”

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