Maricopa County property-valuation appeals soar

Appeals have been growing for the past five years in Arizona's most populous county, but they have swelled by nearly 50 percent in the past two years alone.

Maricopa County Assessor Keith Russell said his office saw 13,251 appeals in 2007 for residential, commercial and vacant land.

As property values began to fall, the number of appeals rose to 17,213 last year and to 19,801 this year.

The biggest spike over those three years was for commercial appeals, followed by residential.

In 2005, when property prices were rising rapidly and assessments had not caught up to market values, total appeals were nearly half of what they are now. The final deadline to appeal property valuations this year is Dec. 15.

This year's valuations were established in January and mailed to owners in February. But the taxes based on those valuations aren't due to be paid until the fall of 2010 - an 18-month lag that creates a disconnect between the value the county puts on a property and what an owner considers its value in today's market.

Valuation notices indicate both a "full cash value" and a "limited property value," the two categories by which various property taxes are determined.

The full cash value, which is intended to closely resemble market value, can be appealed.

Over the past couple of decades, appeals have typically risen when the market declined, according to Russell.

Assessor's Office spokesman Paul Petersen said residential appeals are up particularly in the higher-value areas of Scottsdale and north Phoenix. Residents there stand to save more money because they are often arguing a larger discrepancy.

Petersen said the biggest spike in appeals over the past year has come with commercial property because valuations haven't fallen as quickly as the market for those types of properties. Last year, there were 6,841 commercial appeals. This year, there have been 8,978.

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Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com