Henry County to begin reassessing commercial and industrial property

Beginning next month, the Henry County Assessor’s office will begin the inspection process to reassess values of all commercial, industrial and multi-residential properties in the county.

Henry County Assessor Nathan Milks said that the door-to-door inspections will begin around Sept. 7.

“The industry standard is to try to inspect every parcel in the county every 12 to 15 years,” Milks said. “We hired Vanguard from Cedar Rapids. They will come down and try to get into every commercial, industrial and multi-residential property to do an actual inspection.”

Milks explained that the purpose of the reappraisal program is to equalize property assessments so that each taxpayer is responsible for paying only their fair share of the property tax burden.

“Periodic inspections and reappraisal of properties are necessary because all types of properties do not increase or decrease in value at the same rate,” he said. “Some properties physically deteriorate faster than others, and in many instances similar properties located in different areas of the county will differ greatly in value due to economic factors.”

He said that the in-person property inspections verify that everything about the property is accurate and “to make sure that it is assessed fairly and equitably.”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is going to go up,” Milks said. “If they do an inspection and determine that it needs to go down, that could also happen.”

Milks said that data collectors with photo IDs signed by him will make interior and exterior inspections of all commercial and industrial properties.

They will be compiling information to be used to estimate the fair market value of each property. Information to be collected includes type of construction, type of interior finish, physical condition of the property, age of structures and exterior measurements.

A complete sales analysis, local construction costs, and economic conditions are also considered. No estimate of value will be given at the time of inspection.

Law enforcement will be made aware of the areas where data collectors are working and will have a listing of all names and license plate numbers of anyone involved in the project.

Milks said that he expects the project to be completed by the end of 2022.

A notice of final value estimates will be mailed to each property owner after Jan. 1, 2023.

“When those notices go out to those owners, they’ll know what the outcome of the actual interior inspection was,” Milks said. “If they feel the value is not fair or is off or too high, they have the standard time to petition to go before the Board of Review and protest those values.”

The new assessed values will be effective on Jan. 1, 2023, for taxes payable in fiscal year 2024-25.