Morrow County residents will soon be seeing appraisers from the County Auditor’s office travelling the streets and roads all around the county this summer and fall. This will be part of the appraisal process mandated by the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) to be done every six years.
County Auditor, Patricia Davies said the preparation for the appraisals has already started with “in house viewing of the Geographic Information System (GIS).” The GIS was done with a flyover survey of the county a couple years ago. The mapping from that survey is being used to identify new structures and improvements on properties.
Now the second stage of the appraisal process begins when professional appraisers will be out in the county. Appraisals will be done from the road for the most part. Appraisers who are on the road will have vehicles with signs to identify them and they will wear county identification. When property owners receive a notification letter with a listed discovery of buildings that have been added or removed, they need to verify the correctness of the information. Davies said there have already been houses and buildings identified by the GIS that have not been paying taxes. She said that some of these property owners have not been paying taxes for years. Davies said that the Auditor’s office has an “open book policy.” The
Auditor’s real estate books are open for review. Every property owner is entitled to appeal changes to their appraisal. That means that property valuation can be challenged. New valuations will not be going into effect until Jan. 2017 and they will be payable beginning in January 2018. There will be an adjustment period in 2017 when there can be an appeal of values.
As County Auditor, Davies said that she is responsible for a fair and equitable assessment as well as updating, and certifying the tax duplicate to the Ohio Department of Taxation. If tax updates are accurate, taxes are due to the County Treasurer.
Any questions about updates can be addressed at 419-946-4060 Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. or email the Auditor’s office: Cindy at [email protected] or Becky at [email protected]. The Auditor’s office website is at auditor.co.morrow.oh.us. Property and tax valuation can be examined there by entering the property owner’s name.
