About this time of year, when the spring county and municipal real estate tax bills arrive in mailboxes, I start to get lots of phone calls with questions about the appeal process. Without a doubt, the real estate tax assessment process in Pennsylvania is convoluted and murky. York County’s real estate base totals over 175,000 parcels and has not had a uniform reassessment since 2005. Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that does not have some form of mandatory property reassessment process. The Commonwealth updates the assessments for each of its 67 counties on an annual basis. The state does this by assigning a different inflationary multiplier, called the Common Level Ratio, to each county depending on how long ago that county last reassessed all parcels. The present inflationary multiplier for York County is 1.87. The idea is that if you multiply your assessed value, as shown on your property tax bill, by 1.87, the result should equate to the present-day fair market value. This number is reset on July 1st each year. It also appears that most politicians do not have the appetite to order a uniform reassessment of all county parcels as such an exercise is time-consuming, expensive, and generally viewed unfavorably by the voters.
Right to Change Assessed Value
Real estate-owning taxpayers have an annual right to appeal the assessment being applied to their property on or before August 1st each year. The county tax assessment office also has certain rights as spelled out in the Pennsylvania Statutes that allow them to change the assessed valuation on real property when certain events occur. These events include: the subdivision of a parcel of land into smaller parcels, when capital improvements are made to real property, or when existing capital improvements are removed from real property or are destroyed. Historically, if the county modified a tax assessment by any other method, they would risk having their activities characterized as spot reassessments and thus invalidated.
County Tax Assessors
In recent years, numerous counties in Pennsylvania have attempted to increase the amount of tax dollars they collect by increasing property owners’ tax assessments based upon “review of recent sales.” What this means is that some county tax assessors have begun reviewing recent sales of real estate and comparing the county tax assessment records with Zillow or listing materials that realtors post publicly, which would be available for analysis. If the real estate listing materials evidenced any square footage or capital improvements that had previously been missed in the county tax assessment records, this would be an opportunity for an update. I have even heard of some county tax assessors utilizing drones to discover additional capital improvements to properties that were not included in the county records. The property owner would then receive a notice of increased assessment in the mail. There has been much debate as to whether this new methodology of reviewing recent sales constitutes spot reassessment or not. In 2023, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed the issue and arrived at a 3 to 3 split decision in the GM Berkshire Hills, LLC vs. Berks County Board of Assessment and Wilson School District case. Because of the tie vote, this means the PA Supreme Court has left in place the government’s ability to target recently sold real estate parcels in an attempt to increase their real estate tax assessments.
Right to Appeal
Should a property owner receive a notice of increased assessment from the county after recently purchasing property, their next step would be to consult with a real estate attorney experienced in tax assessment appeal cases. If you receive a new assessment that does not seem accurate, you have the right to file an appeal within 40 days.
Frank Henisse Countess
Shareholder | Attorney
Read Frank’s Bio Page in full HERE.
