Laurie Wink, The News-Dispatch
LA PORTE - Residential property owners in La Porte County can watch and learn from appeals being filed by commercial and industrial property owners.
Commercial and industrial owners received a Form 11 in May, giving them a heads up on new assessments. Residential property owners didn't get a Form 11 this year because La Porte County Assessor Carol McDaniel put that information online to save money.
Some have questioned that decision in a year when assessments are going up because of state-mandated changes in the assessment process. Unless homeowners go online or pull their rate card in their township office, they won't know their assessment until tax bills arrive in September. Once tax bills arrive, property owners have 45 days to appeal.
The county hired Nexus, a consulting firm, to complete reassessment using a trending system - a process McDaniel says she has confidence in.
"There were areas that required more analysis and assessment work than others, given the fact that market values fluctuate within and between townships, towns and cities," McDaniel said. "La Porte County hired the Nexus Group to assure compliance with these assessments per Indiana law."
Jeff Wuensch, chief operating officer of the Nexus Group, said his firm worked with 20 counties to determine property assessments. Wuensch said a third of Nexus' staff were previously employed by what is now called the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, and helped develop Indiana assessment guidelines and trending rules.
But some area attorneys, appraisers and owners of commercial and industrial property have filed appeals and are double-checking Nexus assessments to understand how the firm came up with increases of up to 1,100 percent in the assessed value of some parcels.
Alan Landing, a real estate appraiser in La Porte, says some assessments are not supported with data.
"I have seen massive over-assessments, especially in the industrial sector," Landing said. "Even Nexus says they have no support for the number they chose to value this acreage."
Columbus, Ind., assessor and appraiser Lew Wilson said that outside of Indianapolis, most counties haven't had enough sales of commercial and industrial properties to use market value.
"Without adequate sales data, adjustments to assessed value will continue to produce unreasonable spikes," Wilson said.
Pam Kieft, Coolspring Township assessor, said few sales of commercial land have occurred in her township, so it's difficult to come up with an assessment based on trending. She has heard from some unhappy property owners whose assessments jumped from $40,000 an acre to $250,000 an acre along U.S. 421 south of U.S. 20. But she isn't very sympathetic to those who feel over-assessed.
"To be honest, the commercial sector is getting so many breaks, with inventory tax gone and other deductions, I don't feel bad that commercial property is up to where it should be," Kieft said.
Wuensch said of the 65,000 parcels in La Porte County, so far only 265 appeals have been filed. The majority - 225 - are in Michigan Township, where Wuensch said most involve multi-million dollar residential properties.
Owners of commercial and industrial property in Michigan Township have been appealing increases that, according to Landing, are running 300 to 600 percent higher than 2005 assessments. Wuensch said the county's two largest commercial properties - Blue Chip Casino and Lighthouse Place Premium Outlets Mall - have filed appeals.
"These appeals should come as no surprise given the fact that they have not been paying their fair share of property taxes up until 2006," he said.
In a recent appeal handled by La Porte attorneys with Newby, Lewis, Kaminski & Jones, an assessment half of the one given by Nexus was submitted by Landing, who was hired as a consultant. Landing said he used the standard state pricing manual to arrive at his assessment and he asked Nexus representatives to explain their figure.
"I asked them to please tell me what sales data they used and they said, 'We didn't have any,'" Landing said. "Nexus said they had written their own manual for pricing."
Both Landing and attorney Brad Adamski requested a copy of that manual.
The contract between Nexus and the county requires Nexus to meet Department of Local Government Finance requirements as detailed in the 2002 Real Property Assessment Manual, the one Landing uses to determine assessments.
Last Tuesday, an attorney asked Landing to handle an appeal on behalf of an industrial land owner. The parcel is in a small industrial park on the west side of Indiana 212. The per acre assessment of $2,800 in 2005 is now $30,000 - a 1,100 percent increase, Landing said. The only reported sale in the industrial park was two years ago, when the land was assessed at $10,000 an acre.
A few months ago, the SouthShore Railroad purchased 100 acres at Indiana 39 and the Toll Road for $12,400 an acre, Landing said. Sampling current assessments on property along Indiana 212 and U.S. 12, Landing said all of the parcels were assessed at a minimum of $30,000 an acre, although they were only $5,000 an acre in 2005. One parcel on Indiana 212 was assessed at $56,500 an acre.
Keith Sandin, president of Guardian Industries on Indiana 212, said he and other industrial property owners are in the midst of so many different actions regarding their property, that "it's obscene."
John Regetz, who heads the Michigan City Economic Development Corp., is concerned about the impact of assessment on the ability to attract new business to the area.
"We'd like to meet with Nexus and county and city officials to see if we can get some solutions. From what we've heard, assessments are higher than what would be logical."
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