Because assessment reductions achieved through a successful property tax appeal are not retroactive, knowing when your property is subject to revaluation is critical.  The only way to maximize potential savings from an appeal is to file that appeal during the revaluation year. 

For property tax purposes, each county in North Carolina is required to revalue all real property within its borders at least once every eight years. Revaluations for North Carolina's 100 counties are staggered so that not all counties are revaluing during the same year. Some counties elect to revalue property more frequently than the 8-year mandate — most commonly every four years.

The following 24 North Carolina counties had revaluations effective January 1, 2023:

•          Alamance
•          Alexander
•          Ashe
•          Brunswick
•          Burke
•          Camden
•          Catawba
•          Craven
•          Duplin
•          Gaston
•          Graham
•          Henderson
•          Iredell
•          Lee
•          Lincoln
•          Macon
•          McDowell
•          Mecklenburg
•          Moore
•          Northampton
•          Randolph
•          Rowan
•          Rutherford
•          Yadkin

If you're responsible for property tax assessments of real property in any of these 24 counties, be on the lookout for revaluation notices, which should be mailed to the owner of record. While these notices could have gone out as early as December 2022, they will generally be sent out in February or March of 2023.  Overlooking a revaluation notice is the first of many potential pitfalls that businesses face. Once the notice is sent out, the company has a specific period of time, as stated on the notice, to appeal informally to the tax assessor's office.

More importantly, there is a deadline for filing a formal appeal to the county’s Board of Equalization and Review (“BER”). If no appeal is filed by the deadline, the property owner loses any right to a reduction for that year. The BER appeal deadline varies from county to county and from year to year. Check with the county tax office to be sure of the deadline. However, the deadline cannot be before the first Monday in April. So, filing an appeal by March 31^st can never be late.

If you receive your revaluation notice and believe it substantially overstates the value of your property effective January 1, 2023, give us a call to discuss whether an appeal might make good financial sense.