Assessor Van Nortwick responds to criticism

In today’s Letters to the Editor, a resident took issue with Clark County Assessor Peter Van Nortwick. Specifically, he didn’t like that his assessed value went from $271,351 in 2013 to $331,317 this year, an increase of 21 percent.

Every year we write stories about how property values are calculated, and every year some people are outraged. Nothing new here.

But since it’s an election year, we’ll go ahead and give Van Nortwick a chance to respond.

Van Nortwick provided a list of comparable sales, with the man’s property at the top. (The current assessed value is listed as “sale price.”) The highlighted three-bedroom ranch-style homes that sold for $330,000 were the two Van Nortwick said were most comparable to the man’s three-bedroom ranch-style home.

As to how the man said he was treated by staff members, Van Nortwick wrote:

I talked to him today. He first called into our appraiser of the day who discussed it with him. He was told if he had concerns about the condition of his home he could provide interior photos documenting the condition, which he declined to provide. The next day one of our lead appraisers called him back to discuss it and told him that when processing the appeal he would get a call back but it would be at least 2 weeks. The two weeks would have been when we finished new construction and began reviewing appeals. Mr. Richardson indicated he thought that he would get a call back in two weeks. I apologized for the confusion and told him if I knew he was expecting a call back in two weeks we would have returned the call. We are in process right now of reviewing and putting evidence together for appeals. As always if someone wants to talk to me they can e-mail me at peter.vannortwick@clark.wa.gov or call me at (360)397-2092 x 4634.