Auditor's Office kicks off triennial update

Shelley Terry, Star Beacon, Ashtabula, Ohio
·2 min read

Dec. 1—JEFFERSON — The Ashtabula County Auditor's Office is about to become much busier, thanks to another state-mandated property value update in the new year.

The last county-wide property value update occurred in 2020 as part of the every six-year mass revaluation mandated by the state of Ohio.

The state also mandates triennial updates, which occur between the mass revaluations to capture market changes every three years.

Ashtabula County Auditor David Thomas said the triennial update is less involved and not as intensive in comparison to the mass revaluation.

The six-year 2020 mass revaluations required the auditor's staff to physically inspect more than 80,000 parcels in Ashtabula County. They looked for changes and conditions to combine with market impacts for values.

The triennial update only gauges value changes based on the real estate market of each neighborhood.

"Everything in this triennial update is based on what a property could sell for on the market on Jan. 1, 2023," he said. "In the mass revaluation, we looked at Jan. 1, 2020."

The process will look similar to property owners this time around except they will not see a member of the auditor staff at their front door or on their road.

Instead, Thomas said there is a good amount of number crunching as they examine sales data and determine the changes in prices over the last three years.

"Just like our transparent 2020 mass revaluation, I plan to send postcards and have an online portal," he said. "There will be in-person opportunities to dispute new values and public education sessions."

In the late spring the Auditor's Office will be given a percentage change in total value from the Ohio Department of Taxation.

"We then may argue that percentage change due to different data we have or try to pinpoint areas of stronger or weaker market movement to get to their number," Thomas said.

Individual property information will be helpful to the Auditor's Office should a property owner disagree with their new value.

"We do not know yet what the state will tell us to move our values to for 2023, but I think we have all seen the higher sales numbers these past three years and have been able to track a significant increase in the average sale price," he said. "The key is to get the value as of Jan. 1, 2023 correct."