Major Drop in 2009 Assessment Appeals

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C. - BC Assessment has recorded significant decreases in both public inquiries and property appeal statistics in response to the 2009 assessment roll.

At the Prince George office, there have been just over 1,600 inquiries, that's a 38 % drop over last year. The number of letters of appeal so far is 505, down 53% from 2008, and the number of property appeals filed is down 45% at 560.

Only the office in Surry/White Rock saw an increase in the number of review files with 1,670, an increase of 39.5%

Province wide, the taxable value of the 2009 assessment roll is $953 billion, an increase of $13 billion or 1.41 per cent over the 2008 assessment roll.    

• 30,613 public inquiries were received province wide at 18 BC Assessment area offices, a reduction of 37 per cent over last year's total of 48,373. The majority of customer inquiries are received by phone (24,851) followed by email, in-person, fax and regular mail.
• 7,764 letters requesting assessment reviews by the Property Assessment Review Panel were received. This is a reduction of 57 per cent over last year's total of 18,241 letters requesting reviews. 
• These requests contained a total of 18,978 individual property appeals, a reduction of 35 per cent over last year's total of 28,966 individual property appeals. The number of individual appeals is much higher than the number of letters requesting reviews because many letters ask for a review of the assessments of several properties. 

Last fall, the B.C. government passed the Economic Incentive and Stabilization Statutes Amendment Act in order to provide stability for property owners concerned about property values during an economic downturn.
This legislation required 2009 assessments to reflect the value of a property as of either July 1, 2007 or July 1, 2008, whichever date provided a lower value.

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