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Deputy Commissioner of the Revenue and County Assessor Harold
Throckmorton was bombarded with questions Monday night as he explained
to members of South Boston and Halifax Town Councils and County
Supervisors his reasoning behind the stiff increases in real estate
reassessments that have recently gone out. ìWe try to treat everybody
the same,î Throckmorton said. He said the state mandates that the
reassessments reflect 100 percent of the value of the property,
although Halifax County will achieve somewhere between 90 to 95 percent
of the value.
He explained that his office looks at recent sales of neighboring and
substantially the same quality of the homes to help in determining the
value. He admitted that farmland, which he noted has increased more
rapidly than residential property, is harder to assess, but is based on
road frontage, timber growth, and also recent sales. Throckmorton
stressed that he had to follow state guidelines in figuring the
reassessments.
Halifax Mayor Leon Plaster questioned him specifically about real
estate in the Treybrooke Subdivision and that along Golf Course Road
where he said five homes have been on the market for two years and two
had sold at prices lower than the current assessment. "How can you
assess these properties at a 20 percent increase?" he asked.
Throckmorton said his office will be taking a look at that area where
several questions had arisen.
Halifax Councilman Dick Moore asked Throckmorton if his office looked
at real estate values in neighboring counties, such as Mecklenburg,
Pittsylvania or Charlotte Counties. Throckmorton replied that he did
not since state law called for the reassessments to be based solely on
Halifax County properties. But Moore added "if we want to be an
aggressive county why would you not look at neighboring areas?"
ED#5 Supervisor James Edmunds asked if all the sale prices, the highest
and the lowest of neighboring properties, were averaged out to achieve
the increase in values. Throckmorton responded that the highest and the
lowest sales figures were disregarded, thereby taking the median sale
prices into account. Edmunds then asked if he felt the big jump in real
estate values came from the fact that the reassessment carried out two
years ago undervalued local properties. Throckmorton responded that was
ìpartially the case.î
South Boston Councilman Coleman Speece asked about properties in the
Balmoral Subdivision where he noted few sales had taken place over the
past several years. Throckmorton pointed to one sale there, which he
indicated was quite high, but Speece said buyers from metropolitan
areas with higher real estate values who move to the area pay far more
than local buyers might.
While that might be true, Throckmorton pointed out that his office
could do nothing about that. "That's up to you," he told Supervisors,
noting that land use may be the answer to much of that problem. He
noted that land prices have doubled in the past four years and that big
tracts of land are selling for as much per acre as are smaller ones.
"Buyers of 150 acre tracts are paying as much per acre as are the
buyers of 50 acre tracts," he said. He said land sales in the Riverdale
and Centerville areas are among the highest in the county.
Throckmorton advised residents upset with their reassessments to call
his office at 476-9820 to set up a hearing. The office will meet with
the public from December 3 to December 19 to review the notices, but
appointments are being taken now. Then if they are not satisfied, they
may appeal to the Board of Equalization, which is a three member panel
appointed by the Circuit Court to review complaints. Property owners
can also appeal to the Circuit Court itself, although few go that far.