Board of Equalization and Review

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

The board granted every business penalty compromise in full and denied both exclusion appeals. It sat for 70 minutes with three of its nine members.

The two exclusion denials turned on the statute's own conditions rather than on the houses. G.S. 105-277.1 requires an owner to be 65 or totally and permanently disabled, a North Carolina resident, occupying the home, and to have earned no more than $36,700 in 2023 to qualify for 2024. One applicant's 2023 income exceeded that limit. The other was not the owner of record on January 1, 2024; an attorney produced copies of an unsigned irrevocable trust at the meeting. Both were denied.

The one value appeal concerned a tract carrying two houses in poor condition. The owner's appraiser wrote that the older house has no value at all, citing condition and the absence of access, and that the other suffered infestation, deterioration and settling to the extent that repairing it would cost more than the repaired house would be worth. The county visited on October 8 and largely agreed: it recommended cutting the occupied 97-year-old house's building value from $157,400 to $50,400, applying 100 percent depreciation to the 124-year-old house, whose roof is caving in, and zeroing the outbuildings. That brought the assessment from $3,997,555 in market value and $508,113 assessed down to $3,730,255 and $240,813. The owner sought $3,680,755 and $191,313. The board took the county's figure.

Three businesses had penalties waived in full: $1,358.07 in listing penalties for Eno River Brewing LLC, $68.09 in discovery penalties for B&B Pizza LLC doing business as Papa John's, and $1,219.44 for Samantha's Pupusas, $2,645.60 in all. The board also accepted a late present use value application, which keeps farm and forest land taxed on its use rather than its market value, and refused to hear an appeal on a boat filed after the 30-day deadline.

How the votes went

Eight decisions. Two exclusion denials, one value appeal set at the county's revised figure, three penalty compromises granted in full, one untimely present use value application accepted, and one untimely appeal refused a hearing.

From the published minutes.