Researched and written by: Brian Massie, Executive Director
December 7, 2021

Our goal of trying to understand how the Triennial and Sexennial property tax revaluations are calculated, and how they impact Lake County communities led us down a very deep “rabbit hole”. I would like to thank Mr. Chris Galloway, Auditor, and his highly competent staff members, Ms. Babara Hogya, Deputy Director, and Mr. Mike Ponchin, Manager – Real Estate Division, for helping me better understand the complex world of property taxes. This report is strictly LFC’s compilation of the numbers from the Auditor’s website, and we have not received any confirmation of the accuracy of the numbers other than the 17.3% overall increase in the Triennial Update for residential property.

The Ohio Revised Code Section 5715.24 gives the County Auditors the authority to revise the property values based on changing market conditions. Every three years there is a Triennial Update, every six years there is a Sexennial Re-appraisal. Therefore, every three years your property gets revalued – usually increased. The difference is that the Triennial Update requires only using documented market sales of “arms lengths” transaction between a legitimate buyer and seller to estimate the market values on homes in the various neighborhoods. The Sexennial Re-appraisals requires on-site inspections by qualified market appraisers of each parcel in the County.

Here is the ORC Code Section 5715.24:

It is important to note that the ORC section states that the [State] tax commissioner shall determine if the property values shall be changed. However, the last paragraph of the section gives the absolute authority to the Auditor to override the tax commissioner. That is important, and here is why:

The State provided our Auditor with a letter documenting that the property values in Lake County for the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 increased 16%. Please note that the State only suggested an increase in residential property due to insufficient sales data in the other categories.

When we were finished with collecting the considerable amount of data needed, we determined that the residential property was increased by the Auditor’s office by 17.3%. Here is the confirmation from Mr. Galloway:

As a means of comparison with other Ohio Counties, Auditor Galloway provided us with the following partial list of Counties and their Triennial Update percentage increases:

Belmont – 14%
Brown – 15%
Crawford – 20%
Cuyahoga – 16%
Highland – 19%
Huron – 15%
Lorain – 16%
Lucas – 19%
Morgan – 10%
Muskingum – 13.6%
Ottawa – 17.6%
Stark – 16.4%
Warren – 17%
Williams – 17.5%

The Lake County Auditor used an independent contractor to help with the Triennial Update. The name of the company is Tyler Technologies, and they were paid $43,800.00 for their work. Here are the supporting documents:

Before we get into the detailed numbers, let’s make sure that you understand the terms market value, appraised value, and assessed value.

Market value = The amount a legitimate buyer would pay for a residential property.

Appraised value = The County Auditor determines this value, and the State allows this value to be between 92% – 94% of the market value.

Assessed value = The ORC dictates that this value is 35% of the Appraised value, and is the value used to determine the amount of property tax to be collected.

*****

We took the time to post the 2020 and 2021 Land and Building Appraised Values for over 600 neighborhoods created by the Auditor’s office. That is how we determined the overall 17.3% increase. Here is a schedule reporting all the increases by municipality since 2020. It is sorted based on the % increase – from highest to lowest. The City of Wickliffe had the greatest increase with 22.26%.

Based on a 2020 base of $14,003,275,796, a 1.3% difference (17.3% – 16.0%) amounts to a valuation increase of $182 million in property valuation more than suggested by the State Tax Commissioner’s office.

Numbers can be deceiving, so let’s make sure we give a complete picture. Here is the same schedule sorted based on the average increase in parcel value:

As you can see, the more affluent neighborhoods had a smaller % increase, but the average parcel value increase was substantially greater than the rest of the County.

Are you still with me????

We wanted to determine if land values increased at a different rate than the actual buildings. So here is a schedule that answers this question and a lot more.

Average land values increased 17.22% while residential buildings increased 17.36%. We split out the waterfront properties and saw those land values increased 14.96% while waterfront residential buildings increased 15.20%. However, note that waterfront property averages $94,819 per parcel for 2021, while inland properties average $43,171 per parcel. Living on the water will cost you more in purchase price and in property taxes.

In part 2 of this series, we will report assessed values by taxing district, and school district.

We have opened up the comments section, in case you have any questions, or special requests.

*****

Advertisement

*****

Categories: Lake, Ohio Counties, Real Estate Taxes

Tags: FT