Senior Manager - Property Tax
Delaware, Maryland
06/01/24 UPDATE: The Delaware statewide reassessment is nearing completion in Kent County. Tyler Technologies completed the informal hearings in late winter and early spring, and the Board hearings were completed in early May 2024. Final notices have been mailed and those values will be live on July 1st for tax year 2024.
For New Castle County and Sussex County most of the physical inspections and groundwork is nearing completion. Tyler Technologies has recently mailed out income questionnaires for commercial properties within the counties. It is expected that preliminary values will be mailed in Fall 2024 with a window of informal appeal shortly after receipt of notice. If taxpayers are not satisfied with the result at the informal level, there will be an appeal opportunity to the Board in early 2025. Final notices will be mailed to taxpayers May 2025 and values will be live July 1, 2025, for tax year 2025.
Tyler Technologies points out that this schedule is subject to change but given the timeline followed in Kent County this reassessment should remain on schedule.
AUGUST 2022 UPDATE: Due to delays from multiple parties, all three major counties in Delaware, New Castle, Kent and Sussex, have rescheduled their reassessments with 2023 and 2024 valuation dates, finalizing values for tax years 2024 and 2025. Kent and Sussex counties will be reassessed first with a valuation date from Tyler Technologies of 07/01/2023, and a finalized reassessment by Tax Year 2024. The now presumed target date for New Castle County reassessed values is 07/01/2024 and finalized reassessment in effect by Tax Year 2025. Statewide, Delaware commercial property owners will still be given a 3-month window to initiate an informal reassessed value appeal with Tyler Technologies, likely due 10 days prior to final informal value notification. It is also highly likely that subsequent board appeal deadlines in each county’s reassessment year will be pushed depending when reassessment notices are issued.
There is word that the State is in the process of drafting legislation requiring automatic reassessments for each county every five years, but no official announcement from Delaware State or County officials has been made regarding the matter. At this time, there is no current law in Delaware requiring regular reassessments, but County officials are hoping the proposed legislation becomes law to avoid the inevitable massive valuation and resulting taxation increases commercial property owners will be seeing in the next 18 months.
While Delaware publishes sales study ratios for school funding apportionment purposes, the State Courts have upheld County practices of not applying these ratios to arrive at an implied market value for the current tax year over the last few decades. Instead, the practice remains that property owners and investors had to trend value indications from current year back to the original decades-old reassessment date. Last year, Delaware Courts finally overturned the previous set-precedent, making way for a statewide revaluation that was set to impact 2024 property values. Huge changes for the whole state that were a long time coming, including massive increases to fair market value, and subsequently property taxes, are expected. The uproar has already caused major discomfort amongst commercial and residential property owners alike, a likely factor in the 1-2 year delay.
Delaware commercial property owners should brace themselves for drastic value increases in all three counties. With an abundance of nationwide changes in the commercial real estate landscape, particularly in a post-pandemic era, there is no question that commercial real estate values will be a focus for inflation in an effort to rebuild lost revenue. While values will increase across the board, we are expecting the hardest hit sectors are expected to be multifamily and industrial, as indicated by nationwide trends, while hospitality should be slightly cushioned due to COVID vacancies and economic downturn. These themes, paired with decades of catching up to do, will be a likely cause for bottom-line-threatening value notices for Delaware commercial property owners statewide.
The new Delaware property values will be in place for the 2024 tax year for Kent and Sussez Counties, and the 2025 teax year for New Castle County, and there will be an informal 3-month window for Delaware commercial property owners to appeal their assessed value prior to finalization. With Tyler Technologies’ use of a Computer Mass Appraisal System (CAMA), Invoke recommends a highly personal and detailed approach to protesting the property value increases in Delaware. Our team of Delaware property tax professionals, led by Mitch Wilson, has decades of experience navigating the complex nuances of reassessments, and specializes in securing maximum tax savings for complex commercial real estate. Our approach is personal, hands-on, effective, and has proven to help our clients save millions of dollars in value assessments and property tax refunds year-after-year. To establish a proactive approach to your Delaware reassessment value, contact our Delaware property tax team today by filling out the form above or clicking here.
