Property assessments spark complaints

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Staffers at the Marion County assessor’s office expected phone calls and visits this week, and by Tuesday morning, they weren’t disappointed.

Marion County property owners just began receiving notices in the mail telling them their assessed property value has changed.

“The amount of my increase was over 25 percent over just one year. It’s a newer property so I hope it’s appreciating in value, but I feel like that was a dramatic increase,” said area resident Jody Golden.

Assessor Joseph O’Connor said there were “wholesale changes” made to this most recent assessment. He explained this was the first general reassessment since 2002 and a new, updated formula was used to come up with the values. Inspectors used new cost tables and included sales comparisons of homes nearby and an actual physical inspection of each property.

In all, 312,113 properties saw changes to their assessed value, and 163,146 saw an increase. Of the properties that increased, most went up by 10 percent or less.

“Any time you make wholesale changes in assessments, I think you anticipate problems,” O’Connor said. “So we recognize there will be things that went awry, and a lot of that is brought to our attention through the public or through taxpayers who have data that we just, it wasn't public data that we had access to.”

O’Connor said his office is prepared to work with property owners.

“I've directed staff that you have to recognize that we will see problems, and we need to fix these outside of an appeals process because I feel like being in a general reassessment year gives us the ability to recognize those problems and fix them immediately," he said.

O’Connor said the best thing for homeowners to do if they want to appeal the reassessment is to call the office at 317-327-4907, write a letter or fill out an appeals form online at the assessor's website .

The deadline to appeal is Jan. 28.

Here are the assessor's office locations:

Downtown:
City - County Building

200 E. Washington St., Suite 1360
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Fax: 317-327-4639

North:
951 E. 86th St., Suite 110

Indianapolis, IN 46240-1846
Fax: 317-327-7048

 

East:7363 E. 21st St.
Indianapolis, IN 46219
Fax: 317-327-8887

 

 

West:
351 N. Transfer Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46214
Fax: 317-273-4140

 

 

South:
5226 Elmwood Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46203
Fax: 317-327-4186