Interesting that we were just talking about this the other day on the blog, and our ever increasing property taxes. But this puts a new twist on it;
A lawsuit rising from a disputed property tax assessment involving Minnehaha County could set a troublesome precedent, county officials say.
Hutchinson Technology is suing the county, claiming the sale of a 300,000-square foot building to Sanford Health in 2009 showed the county greatly overvalued the building for tax purposes. The site at 2301 E. 60th St. had been the Hutchinson Technology campus. Sanford acquired it to be its research headquarters.
The most recent assessed valuation before the sale was $18.6 million. But Hutchinson Technology sold the site to Sanford for $12 million. Now Hutchinson Technology is challenging tax assessments from as far back as 2005 and possibly to 2001, according to Kersten Kappmeyer, Minnehaha County state’s attorney chief civil deputy.
Make no mistake, I have often thought state and local governments are greedy when it comes to taxing individuals, nickel and diming us on higher utility rates and fees. Continuing opt-outs for crime prevention and punishment (when changing state laws for non-violent drug offenders would fix the problem) while handing out TIF’s to the big boys and not taxing profits of corporations.
If the County loses this lawsuit, the ripple affect could be devastating, for their coffers anyway.
I don’t usually fall in line with the government position, but this is bullshit on Hutch’s part. They never challenged the valuations during all those years they owned the property. Is it the county’s fault that Sanford convinced them to sell for 2/3 of that figure? What if we suddenly had a recession in our city? If I sold my house for half of what it was worth could I then go back and get refunds for all of those years?
Scott, I kind of wondered about that also. But I also have been curious about my valuations. My taxes have almost doubled in 10 years since I have owned my place and the ONLY improvements I have made were new windows and a privacy fence. I think I am going to start challenging my valuations.
I assume that housing valuations fell sharply in 2008 as the housing market crashed, right? Surely the city and county wouldn’t have neglected such a huge market correction, right?
Right?
I am wondering if they just ignored it, or didn’t do a proper correction.
Hutch is dead wrong on this one. They paid the taxes all those years without complaint.
This is a good example of needed Tort reform. Hutch should have to pay full court costs of the county when they loose.
This is a tough one, because any piece of property is only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. You also have to factor in inventory and the current economy. Hutch couldn’t make it for a reason, which suggests it wasn’t a great time to be trying to offload a gigantic piece of real estate.
The Hutch building wasn’t exactly a hot commodity partially due to it being designed to be a gigantic production facility with no direct access to the Interstate… which limited interest from those who would use it for a warehouse or freight terminal.
However, if someone feels their assessment is out of line, they should be required to submit an appeal within a year. Going back years later and complaining about valuations after the property is sold doesn’t really work if they felt the valuation was fair the entire time they were actually using the facility.
As a larger issue however, I do think most of our property assessments are fair. There will always be outliers of course, but each sale of a property and each building permit pulled on a property will often trigger adjustments on other properties in the area, so there are natural tools in place to keep things in line.
So DL even though you may not have done a considerable amount of improving to your home, if your neighbors have, or if purchase prices in your area are going up… it may have an impact upon you. Just ask people who live near Sanford, because every time Sanford wants to build a new parking lot, local residents find their values on the rise even if they haven’t done so much as hang a new shower curtain since the Reagan administration.
My neighbors improving their property . . . LMAO. The only improvement in my neighborhood over the past few years was a house being torn down after it caught on fire.