Only a few days remain to appeal your BC Assessment Authority's figures for your property. The deadline to formally file a dispute is Jan. 31 and several local disgruntled homeowners are already in the process or strongly considering disputing this year's assessment numbers.
"We live in a mobile home in a trailer park on Aldeen Road and people around here had their assessments go up 20 to 30 per cent. Ours went up almost 25 per cent," said Steve Head.
"A mobile home never, ever appreciates in value and you're home is all you own, the property is rented. It's just ridiculous. You don't take a 13-year-old mobile home that was $40,000 brand new and all of a sudden say it's worth $80,000 because it just isn't the case. Some of my neighbours had their assessed value go over $100,000 for one mobile home unit with no patio, no addition, no heli-pad. Something's goofy."
In response to a Citizen article quoting the Northern Region deputy assessor as saying he couldn't provide the calculations that goes into community's assessments, letter writer, Brad Kope, leveled strong criticism toward the office.
"It's most likely incompetence... that they can't come up with the calculations or the report," he wrote. "Do I smell a coverup?"
He pointed out banks do not accept BC Assessment Authority figures as the correct value of the home when a new purchaser approaches them for a mortgage. A professional home appraisal is needed.
"So, bottom line, the property assessment notices are not worth the paper they are printed on."
At the weekly Citizen Coffee Chat at Books and Company this Tuesday, Stan Wheeldon said when he disputed his property assessment for the North Kelly Road area, he discovered just how shallow the calculation pool was for his home.
"I was told they compared my home to the sale price of other homes in the area, relative to similar property," he said. "Well there has only been one home sell in my area that is anything like mine, that was five years ago, and the buyer came in from the coast, used to the high prices down in the Lower Mainland, didn't do any research here, and paid $100,000 more than he had to. So that drove up everybody's numbers."
He said now he is stuck with the option of leaving the assessment as-is, or appealing which he finds unappealing.
"Either you have to pay for an appraisal or you have to let them come nose around all over your property, and I'm fed up with them, I don't know if I want that to happen," he said.
Head said when some of the neighbours started making inquiries about the mobile home assessments, the contact person from the contractor who did the assessment job was dismissive.
A group of appeals might be necessary, he said, but time is getting short.
An appeal must be sent in by Monday and can be launched by contacting the Prince George office of the BC Assessment Authority or going to the agency's website and filling out the online form at bcassessment.bc.ca.
