In North Carolina, the assessment of property is performed by the county, specifically the County Tax Assessor. Tax Assessors are rigorously trained and certified to perform their duties by the State. For an idea of how complex the task of assigning The manual for their training runs XXX pages and can be found here.
The Buncombe County Tax Department website has a very good explanation of the assessment process, and rather than restate it here, I encourage you to explore it if you’d like a better understanding of what goes into the valuations that this tool is using.
A few items, some copied from the County’s site with additional context and others summarized from the site, are worth including here.
- North Carolina law, NCGS 105-286, specifically requires counties to reappraise all real property at least once every eight years. Real Property is considered land, buildings, structures, and improvements. NCGS 105-286 also authorizes counties to reappraise real property more frequently than every eight years. In order to maintain current values, Buncombe County attempts to reappraise all real property on a four year schedule. The most recent reappraisal became effective January 1, 2021. The previous reappraisal became effective in 2017.
- North Carolina General Statutes require that real estate be assessed at 100% of its market value as of January 1 of each reappraisal year. The assessment of new construction is based on its percent of completion as of January 1. The Assessment Office also administers the present land use and exemption programs.
- Market value is determined in several ways.
- The North Carolina General Assembly enacted the Present-Use Value Program, which allows reduced tax assessments for individually owned property used for agriculture, horticulture or forestry. Property accepted into this program is taxed at its “present use value” as a farm. This value is usually less than the market value of the property. The 2022 Use-Value manual is found here.
- There are five main types of deferments are: Agricultural, Horticultural, Forest Land, Historical and Wildlie Conservation Easement. The Biltmore qualifies for at least one of these. Further research on this reveal more.
