I filed an administrative appealed on my real estate assessment based upon the classification of land and the associated value not being representative of the actual land. When I took a close look, I found that my property has been erroneously classified in King William County's benefit for decades - long before I owned the property. Each time an assessor visited the property they drove past open fields and clear cut lands. Yet still they classify the property as hardwoods of value which increased the land value and associated tax.
The administrative appeal was filed with significant documentation and support for the revised assessment, as seen below. I provided a comparable farm property less than a mile away zoned Agriculture-Conservation (AC) with similar attributes, which would have lowered my land valuation by $28k and be more in line with private real estate appraisals I have.
In her response, the King William Commissioner of Revenue (Sally Pearson) instead used three properties zoned Rural Residential (RR) that are 5 acre parcels, are primarily wooded with a house, and in no way similar to the land topography, classification, or use of my land, to raise my land valuation by $15k based on the only evidence presented, her "opinion".
I have shared this with the Board of Supervisors, the County Attorney, and the County Administrator and still they do NOTHING! Why do they let this seemingly abuse of power continue to happen?
At this point to have this corrected I need to petition the circuit court at my expense. The county taxpayer will have to foot the bill to have the County Attorney represent the county in this dispute.
