Even after the storm of the century turned Buncombe County upside down, one thing remained certain: taxes.
At the March 4 Buncombe County Board of Commissioners meeting, Eric Cregger, the county’s interim tax assessor, reported that prior to Tropical Storm Helene, the county was about 70% finished with reappraisals to meet the January 2025 deadline.
But widespread property damage and upheaval caused by Helene led commissioners to vote 7-0 on Oct. 15 to delay the 2025 tax reappraisal deadline by a year — to Jan. 1, 2026 — to give the county more time to assess the storm’s impact.
A North Carolina General Statute requires counties to reappraise all real property at least every eight years. But Buncombe County chooses to reassess property every four years. The last appraisal occurred in January 2021.
According to Cregger, more than 5,500 real estate parcels were affected by Helene, including hundreds of business accounts and mobile homes. Properties that remained damaged or destroyed as of Jan. 1 have been reappraised for 2025. Businesses and private property owners will begin receiving property valuation notices for the current tax year as soon as next week, with all notices expected to be mailed out by the end of the month.
“We are not far off from a typical nonreappraisal year, which, to me, that’s a great accomplishment for this team,” he said. “Typically in a nonreappraisal year, it’s 10,000 to 12,000 notices. This year we’ll be sending out 17,000 real estate notices alone.”
Business and property owners seeking to appeal their valuation will have 30 days from the date of the mailed notice.
To prepare for next year’s countywide revaluation, Cregger said that assessors will conduct site visits and analysis of aerial and street-level photography for all Buncombe County properties beginning in April, with preliminary values presented to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners by August. Property owners will have the opportunity to appeal the reappraised values in October.
“I know we had put off the reappraisal, obviously based on Helene, [but] can you just speak some to the decision to go ahead and proceed with that reappraisal in this upcoming year? Why is that staff’s recommendation?” asked District 2 Commissioner Terri Wells.
“Our assessment level right now, which is our market value versus our appraised value, is currently at 62%, so we are 38% below market value. State law says we should be as a median at the county very close to or at 100%,” Cregger explained. “So, if you’re below 85%, you get a notice saying that you must do a reappraisal within three years. We got that notice in January 2023. So we were able to delay it at this level, [but] we must do it in January 2026.”
In other news
Commissioners also voted unanimously to approve a resolution that would allow the county to accept up to $8.45 million in cashflow loan funding from the state to support Helene-related activities. The county will receive the loan interest-free and has until five years to complete repayment.
This story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Reporting and Editing.
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