More than 250 people turned out Saturday to hear Lake Gaston area tax officials explain how property tax reassessments are done, how often they are done, and what recourse local residents have if they disagree with a re-evaluation of their property.

Officials from Halifax, Warren, Mecklenburg, and Northampton counties were in attendance, while those from Brunswick did not come to the meeting.

Folks in Halifax and Warren counties seemed to make up the majority of the crowd. Halifax County just completed a re-evaluation of property in the county, and Warren County officials plan to do their next one in time for 2009.

Doris Hawkins, Halifax County Geographic Information Systems coordinator, explained her county does a re-evaluation every eight years.

“Much of what we do in Halifax County is dictated by the state,” she said. “State code requires assessments reflect the market value of property,” and be done at least every eight years.

“If you’ve dealt with real estate sales, you know the mantra location, location, location. That is certainly true in Halifax County.”

She explained that while the county has roughly 38,000 parcels of land, the 1,600 associated with Lake Gaston and Roanoke Rapids Lake clearly saw the biggest appreciation in assessed value.

Avery Davis, chief tax appraiser in Northampton County, said the story is the same in his county.

“Lake Gaston property is going up about 250 percent,” he said of Northampton’s re-evaluation, which takes effect this year.

Both Davis and Hawkins cautioned those in attendance not to assume their tax bills would go up by the same percentage as their property value assessments.

While both said it would be up to their respective county boards of commissioners to determine the tax rates, Chars Graham, tax assessor for Halifax County, said he would be surprised if the tax rates don’t drop.

William Bracey, Commissioner of the Revenue for Mecklenburg County, said that happened in his county.

He told the crowd his county re-assess property every two years. While state code requires at least every six years, his board of supervisors opted for more frequent re-assessment “because there’s less sticker shock.”

Even with the more frequent assessments, he said property values in the Lake Gaston region of Mecklenburg jumped by about 30 percent. As a result, the supervisors dropped the tax rate from 43 cents per $100 of assessed value to 36 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Though Brunswick County was not there, last week Brunswick Commissioner of the Revenue Wanda Beville said her board of supervisors dropped the tax rate last year from 60 cents to 39 cents after the reassessment.

Warren County Tax Assessor Eddie Mitchum said his county also does reassessment every eight years and while residents there won’t have to worry about it until 2009, he indicated they can expect some sticker shock.

He said a firm doing reassessments around Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia is finding land values there are doubling since the last assessments – “And they did it four years ago,” he said.

He also indicated Lake Gaston area property owners can probably expect to see their land values go up more than some other land owners in the county.

“I can say we are under-assessing Lake Gaston,” he said. “We are under-assessing property on Kerr Lake, we are under-assessing raw land.” He went on to say he county is probably over-assessing some property, particularly land that has been divided up into lots with mobile homes placed there.

After the county tax officials made their presentations, they entertained questions submitted in writing by those in attendance. Answers to those questions revealed:

• Previous tax assessments have no bearing on present or new assessments.

• Assessments include a number of factors, including the value of the land, the cost of building or improving structures, and sales of similar land or structures in the general neighborhood or vicinity.

• None of the tax officials agreed with one question that indicated property values along Lake Gaston have peaked and are beginning to drop.

• If residents want reassessments applied differently, such as phasing in over time rather than one big hit, they need to address that with state legislators, since state code determines how reassessments are applied.

• If a lake front home does not have a dock, or cannot get a dock permit, the assessed value of that property would probably be lower than similar land and structures that do have docks.

• While some property in the counties might see a drop in assessed value, there is no relation between assessed value of lake front property verses other property in the county. In other words, lake area owners are not having their property values hiked in order to allow non-lake land owners to enjoy lower land re-evaluations.