Tax Jolt Property Owners Walloped With Massive Increases In Assessments, Tax Bills

As newlyweds in the 1940s, Grace and Al Frederick began their new life together in a small brick home above the Spokane River.

Al had helped his father build the house where the young couple raised two daughters. Over time, the house became a repository of family memories.

It’s a property the Fredericks, now 70, plan to pass on to their daughter. They just hope it won’t become too valuable for her to keep.

The assessed value of the Fredericks’ 1-acre parcel jumped 500 percent this year. That will translate into an increase of between $800 and $1,000 in their 1998 property tax bill.

Once known for its poverty and “ruffians,” the Fredericks’ semi-rural neighborhood, off Barker Road along the south bank of the river, has become desirable and expensive. Alongside the modest older homes and trailers, giant houses and new developments such as Riverwalk now skirt the Spokane River in Greenacres.

And after years of backlogs at the county assessor’s office, the reality of updated assessments this spring has proven shocking to some residents.

The increase in land values is great news for residents planning to sell. But it could become a hardship for the low- and middle- income families who want to stay.

Realtors, such as Mary Lou Shiley, have noticed the impact already.

“I’ve had several calls saying ‘My taxes are sky high and I’m selling,”’ said Shiley, who has specialized in the Valley resale market for 14 years. “I’ve never had that before.”

Jack Buss, lead appraiser for the Spokane County assessor’s office, expects to see more land, especially vacant land, go up for sale following the arrival of new valuations this spring. That worries residents like the Fredericks. They know that new sales in their area, especially lucrative ones, could push the assessed value of their land even higher.

“The law says ‘current market value,”’ Grace said, “and people are now willing to pay any kind of price.”

Spokane-area property values have risen significantly in the 1990s. The average sale price for a home in Spokane County nearly doubled from 1987 to 1996; rising from $58,000 to $114,000, according to the Spokane Association of Realtors.

Valley homes have followed that trend. Still, for many long-time Valley residents, the impact of rising property prices only became clear this spring. Due to staffing problems in the assessor’s office, some Valley residents have gone seven or eight years without a site visit from an appraiser. Now, after several years with no change in the assessed value of their land, they have seen big increases this year in their tax bills.

Land tax assessments in the Fredericks’ neighborhood didn’t grow one penny from 1990 to 1997, a period when market values soared. After at least seven years of seeing their land appraised at $12,700, the Fredericks felt the sting of a sudden 500 percent increase this spring. Their land now is assessed at $63,500.

The Fredericks’ neighbor, Bill Bartlett, saw his land jump from $11,300 to $56,500. Another neighbor’s land increased from $8,900 to $44,500.

Of course, not everyone is sympathetic to the predicament of such property owners. As appraisers point out, these residents have enjoyed artificially low property tax bills for years because their land was undervalued.

Still, inaccurate assessments and sudden jumps do cause hardships, and by law, they shouldn’t happen. The assessor’s office is required to do an in-person inspection of one-sixth of all the properties in the county each year. The rest must be audited, meaning their value is reappraised by looking at new sales data for their region.

“We didn’t have enough personnel to do the job,” said Dave Wonder, county appraisal manager.

The assessor’s office experienced staffing cuts in 1993 and 1994. It didn’t have enough employees to visit properties or to update sales data, Wonder said. It also struggled with a new computerized record-keeping system.

Residents such as the Fredericks probably went seven or eight years without an on-site inspection, lead appraiser Buss said.

“We got way behind there,” Buss admitted.

The Valley is the last area backlogged county appraisers must catch up on. Half of the eastern Valley received on-site visits this year. When the rest receive inspections next year, the entire county will finally be up-to-date.

While it’s true that certain areas have been hit hard by the lag in updated values, skyrocketing assessments are far from pervasive in the Valley.

Riverfront land in the Fredericks’ neighborhood jumped 400 percent or more, but most landlocked properties saw modest 10 percent to 20 percent increases for 1998. And overall, nearly half of the 44,700 Valley properties visited in person this year did not change in value.

But this gives little comfort to the Fredericks, who view themselves as middle-class citizens trapped by the changing face of the Valley.

For now, the retired elementary school teachers will simply shell out the extra $1,000 or so in annual property taxes. They hope their assessments will stabilize and that the land won’t become too costly for their children and grandchildren to keep.

What’s most ironic, Grace Frederick said, is the change in attitude about the river. Fifty years ago, they never would have dreamed they’d be paying thousands in extra taxes each year for what was then considered a drawback to the land.

Her father-in-law disliked the constant roar of water crashing over rock, and as a result, built the family home as far back from the river as possible.

“We never considered the view an asset,” she said. “We thought the kids would go down there and drown.”