Appeals Over Property Assessments Soar : Real estate: About 3,600 claim they are paying bloated taxes. Authorities warn some of the cases may not be heard for two years.

Record numbers of frustrated property owners have filed appeals with Ventura County since July, requesting cuts in the assessed value of their homes and businesses because of the continuing decline of the region’s real estate market.

From Simi Valley to Ventura, about 3,600 owners have claimed that they pay bloated taxes on properties whose market values are far less than shown on county rolls.

By the end of the fiscal year on June 30, officials expect appeals to rise to 4,000--about 5 1/2 times greater than in 1989-90 when real estate values peaked.

Those filing appeals include the owners of such high-profile properties as the Price Club in Oxnard and The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks. But most are homeowners such as Jeanne Clark, who bought her house when real estate prices peaked, only to see values drop for four consecutive years.

“I’m the perfect victim of the economy in California,” said Clark, 35, a real estate broker who bought her modest Oxnard home in 1989 for $230,000. It is now officially valued at $178,000 after two successful appeals.

“It’s for sale for $170,000,” she said. “And I haven’t had an offer yet.”

Yet, Clark is fortunate in one way. Her most recent appeal has already been granted. Authorities warn that some of the 4,000 new appeals may not be considered for nearly two years because of an ever-growing backlog of cases.

The current backlog is about 3,600, including 300 complicated business and industrial cases filed at least 18 months ago but which require special attention, county Assessor Glenn Gray said.

“We know the values have gone down, so it’s just a matter of us getting to them,” Gray said. “We’ve had some huge increases in workload.”

The Board of Supervisors impaneled a second Assessment Appeals Board last fall so the county can deal with appeals within two years, as required by state law. Failure to meet that deadline would result in an automatic lowering of values to the levels claimed by owners.

While adding a second appeals panel, county supervisors have cut staffing in the assessor’s office by 36 jobs over three years to 113 today because of tight budgets, Gray said.

The surge of pending appeals--up from just 730 four years ago--has occurred not only because property values continue to drop, but because owners now expect the real estate slump to last, officials said.

“There’s a greater public awareness as time goes on that these reductions in value are not for just a year or two,” said Bruce Gray, chief deputy assessor.

Supervisor John K. Flynn, who sits on one of the assessment appeal boards, said homeowners used to dominate the appeals process, but many more businesses are now seeking relief.

“The mood of the appellant is just one of, ‘Hey, the economy hit us and here we are,’ ” Flynn said.

Businesses seeking help range from old shopping malls to newer industrial buildings and vacant parcels improved with water and sewer hookups, but which languish without construction.

For example, Parker Hannifin Corp. has filed to reduce the $10.8-million assessment on its 9-year-old aerospace parts plant in Moorpark to $5.5 million. Resolution is expected soon to meet a July deadline.

Other older, complicated cases include the Price Club’s request to drop the value of its 8-year-old Oxnard outlet by more than half, to $4.9 million. That appeal, like many others, is based on a reduction in the value of real estate, said county tax analyst Jim Dodd.

In Thousand Oaks, the partnership that owns a nearly new Westlake Boulevard office building wants its value cut from $16 million to $9 million. At the nearby Oaks mall, owners have appealed for a cut in value from $129 million to $35 million, Dodd said.

And in a government-versus-government twist, two federal agencies that have seized dozens of insolvent local businesses have filed several appeals. In one case, the federal Resolution Trust Corp. has agreed to continue paying taxes on the small Bellwood Center in Simi Valley, but wants its value cut nearly in half to $4.2 million.

More than 95% of all appeals are resolved before reaching the two assessment boards, Assessor Gray said. But in the older cases, even successful property owners sometimes are dissatisfied because their new values are pegged to the date they appealed--nearly two years before. As a result, their properties may now be worth much less than they had claimed.

The explosion of appeals has occurred despite the assessor’s effort to cut property values automatically, without owners ever filing an appeal, Assessor Gray said.

The assessor has already granted reductions this fiscal year on 49,000 parcels--about 22% of all those in the county--after a computer compared current sales prices with values of comparable homes. Automatic reappraisals will be expanded even more next year as many businesses are included for the first time, Dodd said.

The value on the vast majority of homes purchased between March, 1988, and December, 1992, was rolled back for 1993-94, Assessor Gray said. The rollbacks are required since the current market value is not as great as original purchase prices, which established taxable value.

The number of properties automatically receiving lower appraisals has nearly doubled in three years as the value of the average Ventura County home has continued to drop.

An average home here cost $261,600 in 1989 after an increase from $189,625 in 1987. But that inflated price was pricked by the recession. The average price last year was $234,381, and it is still declining despite a promising increase in home sales, according to TRW REDI Property Data.

Even with so many reassessments, the value of all property in Ventura County increased 2.2% last fiscal year because of new construction and because most properties that sold were reassessed at higher values.

But last year’s growth was modest compared to the 13.5% increase in 1990-91. And officials expect the increase to be even less this year.

Home Prices

Average home prices in Ventura County have dropped each year since peaking in 1989.

Year: Price

1989: $261,600

1990: $248,578

1991: $243,412

1992: $238,119

1993: $234,381

Source: TRW REDI Property Data

Assessment Appeals

Appeals of property assessments have increased 5 1/2 times in Ventura County in the past five years.

Year: Number of Appeals

1989-90: 730

1990-91: 976

1991-92: 1,883

1992-93: 2,690

1993-94*: 4,000

* Number is an estimate. About 3,600 appeals filed so far this year.

Source: Ventura County Assessor’s Office

Property Reductions

State law requires county assessors to reduce property tax assessments when the market value drops below its value on the assessor’s roles. Figures below show the number of properties whose values were reduced through computer analysis without a formal appeal.

Year: Number of Properties

1991-92: 26,435

1992-93: 35,000

1993-94: 49,000

Source: Ventura County Assessor’s Office