Most counties in Ohio begin accepting Board of Revision Complaints on January 1, 2016 and will continue through March 31, 2016.
The purpose of the Board of Revision Complaint is to change the market value on record with the county if the county valued the real property too high or too low. This will, in turn, cause the owner to pay higher or lower property taxes. If, for example, the county has the market value of your common area at $100,000, but it has no saleable or marketable value, then you could apply to the Board of Revision to have the property valued at zero. The Board of Revision would then review an appraisal of your common area, and determine the value of the property. In this case, if the Board of Revision agreed with you, the Association would no longer have to pay property taxes on the particular parcel (the Association must have title to the parcel in order to file a Complaint.) An Association in Summit County recently filed a Board of Revision Complaint for a common parcel previously valued at $241,000 to be reduced to a value of zero, meaning the Association no longer had to pay taxes on its common area parcel. However, the reverse may happen, as well. School districts may file complaints stating that the county’s market value is too low, and there may be a fight to keep the current value to avoid paying higher taxes.
The majority of the counties in our area will not charge a filing fee to file a Board of Revision complaint, however, you may have to employ an appraiser as an expert on your behalf, and association appraisals can become quite involved. Please contact our office as soon as possible should you decide to file a Complaint or want more information.