Property Tax Hearing

[Doug]

From Kent Oehm (Association President):

HBR Owners,
Last Spring the County of Kauai used a new method of appraising condominium property which resulted in the land values being increased significantly and the building values slightly decreased. The result was in some cases 20 to 40% increases in assessed valuation and in resultant taxes. Timeshare appraisals are done differently using resale values multiplied by 52 weeks, which results in a much lower tax than a similar sized wholly owned unit. Many of us have appealed our assessed value, and a number of us have received a Notice of Hearing in Lihue on November 2, 2009 at 1 pm.

One of our owners, Jon Emanuel has volunteered to review the property tax laws and to appear for any of our owners at the Hearing as he will be on Island then and appealing his own. Jon is also pursuing engagement of a tax attorney on a contingency basis to challenge the tax and assessment methods. I did poll owners early in the summer and 8 to 10 owners expressed interest in participating.

For those of us who received the Notice of Hearing, the way to keep the appeal alive is to provide written testimony, personally appear or have an authorized representative appear. I am going to fax Jon my Notice of Hearing which has the property identification number (TMK) along with a signed statement authorizing him as my representative for the hearing. (The latter can be hand written.) You can add other justification for your appeal if you wish. Jon has agreed and would welcome other owners doing the same thing so he has strength in numbers at the Hearing. Jon is coming over on October 30th so you may fax him at HBR before November 2nd, at 808 826-6680, Unit 6301/2. I have alerted Scott to hold any such faxes for Jon and give them to him. Jon's telephone number is 805 651-9011 (he does not do e-mail).

Kent Oehm
303 906-1480

[jebett3@aol.com]

Good luck. I know we should see a drop next year according to the tax assessor I spoke with during the initial investigation.

[jebett3@aol.com]

Everyone should have gotten their property tax notice for this year and it indeed did reduce by 20%.