A new guideline being considered by the Value Adjustment Board (VAB) is drawing criticism, a report by FloridaBulldog.com says.
The change was submitted by Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia’s office.
Rafael Millares, the recently appointed general counsel for the VAB, said he is evaluating Garcia’s proposed rule change, as well as opinions submitted by attorneys who represent property owners before the board. Millares said he will likely issue his opinion on the matter now that 2107 has arrived.
“I am new here so I have been doing a lot of research and going over what was left over from the previous VAB counsel,” Millares told the website. “So it is going to take a while. My plan is to produce a memo that conforms to the law.”
To figure out each property owner’s annual tax bill, property appraisers in every Florida county are bound by law to assess the market value of every parcel. An owner who believes a property has been given a higher value than it is worth can appeal directly to appraiser or skip right to the VAB.
Garcia’s assertion is that appraisers have to submit a property record card, which contains general information about a parcel such as sales history and appraisal values, and provide general comments about its assessment techniques. Critics have lobbied Millares to reject that, saying a full appraisal is necessary.
“We are not doing anything that we believe is legally incorrect, unfair or unjust to a property owner,” Miami-Dade Deputy Property Appraiser Lazaro Solis said. “Our attorneys say we are within our rights [to propose the change].”
In a Dec. 6 letter, Jorge Martinez-Esteve, a Miami-Dade County assistant attorney representing the property appraiser, disputed critics’ claims.
“At any VAB hearing, the property appraiser’s office is only required to introduce evidence regarding the mass appraisal techniques used by the property appraiser’s office to arrive at the assessment,” Martinez-Esteve wrote. “The property appraiser is not required to introduce any evidence regarding the single appraisal of the subject property.”
Because Miami-Dade has more than 1 million properties, conducting single appraisals for every parcel would be impractical, Solis said.
“The property appraiser’s office conducts mass appraisals, a process of valuing a group of properties through a mathematical analysis of market data, to determine a specific parcel’s fair market value,” Solis said. “The property appraiser is not looking to make property owners pay more in property taxes.”