Like most of the country, King George & Stafford Virginia real estate has dropped in value since it's peak three years ago. As a real estate agent, and member of the community, I've run into a few people that are concerned that their tax assessment is higher than market value, so they perceive they are paying too much tax.
At first blush that makes perfect sense. However, a few months ago a good friend of mine, and owner of multiple properties, shared his thoughts on why the assessments being too high does not result in owners paying more than their share. It makes sense.
Think about the purpose behind having tax assessments in the first place. The county decides it needs "X" amount of dollars for it's budget that year. The assessment is used to divide the tax burden fairly amongst the property owners. Generally speaking all property in King George and Stafford counties is currently assessed over market value so all the property owners are in the same boat. If the assessment was dropped to try to resemble fair market value then the county would have to raise the tax rate. Either way the county will get it's money.
On the other side, if new assessments were to take place, we would spend even more of our hard-earned dollars doing new assessments for every piece of property.
There is a bright side to everything.
Susan Walsh
Exit Realty
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