Deciding whether or not to change a common area parcel back to sellable real estate brought discussion and questions when the Gilmer County Board of Assessors met Thursday, Nov. 19.
Chief Appraiser Theresa Gooch said, in 2017, Coosawattee River Resort requested to have 10-15 parcels designated as common area. That classification is typically granted to property that can be used by all residents of a subdivision or apartment complex, including exercise areas, parks and pavilions.
Assessor board members granted the request then, but now the development wants to sell one of the parcels, said Gooch.
“These were individual lots Coosawattee felt they would never do anything with. They were going to make them accessible as common area for everyone to use. They replatted and renamed the lots as common area lots and put verbiage in their deeds saying the lots will forever remain common area lots (that) will not be sellable. There is a gentleman outside of the development who wants to purchase this lot. They did state that they understand they may need to go back and pay taxes on the previous years,” she told board members.
Gooch said the back taxes for 2017-2020 only amount to about $168 and the lots are typically valued at $4,800-$5,000.
“There ought to be some wall there that says you can’t do this,” said board member Tom Porter.
“They came to us and we gave them what they wanted. You can’t come back years down the line and say ‘hey, we would like for you to reverse what you did.’ This is what they wanted and we gave it to them. Leave it as it is,” replied board member Jerry Davis.
Ultimately, the board voted in majority to return the less than 1-acre lot to sellable status and collect back taxes. Gooch said the assessors office cannot legally prevent the property from being sold.
“If they go through with a sale, they go through with a sale. We can’t stop that,” she added.
Assessors office attorney David Clark recommended denying any future requests from Coosawattee in regard to changing lots to common area use.
“As to future requests by this same organization, I would categorically deny based on the fact that you don’t know whether or not what they are asking for is, in fact, legitimate,” he said.
Both Gooch and Clark noted that the assessors office has no penalty procedure for changing common area parcels back to sellable status.
Gooch noted that it’s not a usual request.
“I’ve never had one do this before,” she said.
In other news ...
Board members approved hiring outside appraisal company GMASS to review several hundred parcels for the assessors office for a cost of $14,752.
Gooch said the office currently does not have an appraiser for area 2, which includes the southwest part of the county, and approximately 461 parcels need to be reviewed to complete work for the 2021 digest.
Davis asked if the work can be done in-house.
“I think we ought to keep it here. If there are people wanting to work extra hours to do it, put it in their hands,” he said.
Gooch said the complete count of parcels that need reviewed is more than 800. Aside from those that GMASS will cover, the rest of the work has been distributed among the office’s appraisal staff, she noted.