Let’s say that years ago you bought a house for $100,000 with every intention of staying there for the rest of your life. A hundred grand used to be considered a lot of money to spend on a home.
You could go down to the corner bar and say “I live in a $100,000 home.”
The barflies would drool with envy.
Back in the good old days, most neighborhoods in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton – as well as all the little patch town neighborhoods in between – didn’t boast $100,000 houses.
The swells lived in their mansions on the hill. Down below, company houses and other modest homes stood firm against whatever ill wind blew their way.
A hundred-thousand-dollar home owner was considered very well off.
Now, after 40 years, Luzerne County officials have undertaken a reassessment. Almost all those old homes have increased in value. Your $100,000 baby might now be worth $200,000.
The tavern regulars now look at you like you’re Donald Trump.
Maybe not, though.
Maybe you let the geese come in from the garden for the winter for the past decade or so. Maybe you rented the attic to the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick for card games and the lads trashed the joint. Maybe you just fell behind on the upkeep, let the place go, and now it’s as old and as run down as you feel.
But the home’s value likely still increased.
You can still head to the local saloon and boast that despite your aches and pains, your home is now worth 200,000 big bills.
That’s nice.
What’s not nice is that your property taxes will also increase.
Goodbye beer money. Forget about that pool tournament. So long to all the Polish sausages in a jar that you used to eat on a happy Saturday night. Now you’ll consider a single Slim Jim to be a treat on that rare night out on the town.
But, the assessment might be wrong.
Happy days might be here again.
Appeal the reassessment decision. Ask for a hearing.
Luzerne County assessment official Tony Alu said yesterday on “Corbett” that he expects about 15,000 people to ask for hearings. Of that number, about 6,000 will be full-blown “official” hearings rather than the “unofficial” hearings held by the company that county officials hired to do the assessment work.
Assessment appeal board members will conduct the hearings.
But they’ll need help.
They’ll draw from 12 auxiliary members and eight alternate auxiliary members. They also have a list of county residents who applied to be hearing board members but came up short in the appointment process.
Cynics say that board members are politically connected.
Some are.
Some aren’t.
Some aren’t qualified to assess their own state of mind, let alone your home.
Either way, hearing judges will receive $100 each day to sit in judgment as well as gas mileage money.
And if you don’t like their decision, you can appeal to the county court and even have a jury trial if you like.
That’s what I’d do. I’d represent myself, and even if I lost, I could go back to the bar – the one I’m qualified to stand before – and tell everybody that most real lawyers lose a lot too. I’d buy a round of drinks for the house - on credit, of course.
Then I’d head home and wonder how to make the mortgage and the tax bill. And I’d think about selling in a market that isn’t nearly as good as the good old days when $100,000 meant something.
Corbett
