In a year that saw property owners file a record number of attempts to lower their property values — as calculated for tax purposes — in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, thousands of property owners have now received notices that their values have been decreased. 

That means those owners will see some relief in next year’s property tax bills.

In Douglas County, a higher percentage of property owners who appealed saw relief than in Arapahoe County.

Toby Damisch, who leads Douglas County’s property valuation office, said 37% of properties whose values were appealed saw some relief.

In Arapahoe County, that number is about 23%, county spokesperson Anders Nelson said.

Homeowners around the Denver metro area checked a notice from their county assessors this spring and saw that their home value had jumped by sometimes shocking amounts.

Driven by a costly real-estate market, those home values have spiked since the last time homeowners received notices of value two years ago. In Douglas County, residential properties faced increases between 30% and 60%, with a median of 47%.

In Arapahoe County, residential properties saw almost a 42% increase on average, according to PK Kaiser, the head of Arapahoe’s property valuation office.

The high increase in property values means families’ property tax bills could jump up next year.

Both counties received an overwhelming number of appeals after sending out the notices of value. In appeals, owners argue their property value should be lower.

One of every four residential property owners filed appeals this year in Douglas County, Damisch said. With roughly 36,000 properties appealed for, this year’s total more than doubled the next-highest total for appeals in Douglas County from back in 2009, Damisch estimates.

Arapahoe County saw about 31,000 appeals — more than three times Arapahoe’s next-highest appeal rate in the past decade, about 9,000 in 2019.

“This was a historic number of appeals that we received and we take every one very seriously,” Nelson said, adding: “We wanted to make sure everyone had equal opportunity on this, to have their property evaluated.”

How many saw relief

The property valuations that homeowners received around early May were based on data as of June 2022, near the recent peak in the real-estate market.

Even though home prices have declined since then, property values from the county assessor’s offices reflect last year’s exceptional highs.

In Douglas County, property owners saw a relatively high rate of success in appealing their values. About 2 in 5 properties whose values were appealed saw some relief, said Damisch, the county assessor.

The Douglas assessor’s office lowered values for about 41% of the residential properties that were appealed, Damisch said.

In the past, “we’ve adjusted between 25% and 40% of appeals” in any given year for residential properties, Damisch has said.

Including other types of land — such as commercial and vacant land — that rate was 37%, Damisch said.

In Arapahoe, the number of appeals that resulted in a reduced property value this year was in line with recent years, Nelson said. Usually, about 25% of appeals see a reduction. This year, it was about 23%.

What a successful appeal means

So how much did values come down for appealed properties?

Typically, when an appeal succeeds, the Douglas assessor’s office decreases a property's value by 5% to 10%, according to Damisch.

This year, his office’s average decrease for residential property was 7%, Damisch said. The average adjustment for all appeal types was also about 7%.

In Arapahoe County, the average adjustment on a single-family home that successfully received a lower value was a reduction of about 4%.

Nelson emphasized that the number includes many different types of single-family residences, ranging from detached homes to condos.

What made an appeal successful?

A successful appeal can stem from something small: The assessor’s office could have some characteristic wrong, like incorrect information about the deck of a house. 

Other wrong information in the records could relate to the bathroom count, square footage or garage, according to Damisch.

In Arapahoe County, Nelson said a lot of unsuccessful appeals this year did not provide market-based support for their claims.

“A lot of appeals simply said ‘value is too high’ or ‘I couldn’t sell my house for that price,’” Nelson wrote in an email.

But whether the county assessor’s office accurately valued a property depends on what price the property could have sold for as of June 2022, Damisch said.

Some appealers did not realize their home values were based on that timeline, and provided market data after June 2022 to try to make a case for lowering their values.

That discrepancy “was especially prevalent this year as many neighborhoods saw decreasing sales prices after (June 30) due to increased supply and higher mortgage rates,” the email from Nelson said.

How property values are determined

Assessors’ offices use what are called “mass appraisals” because there are so many properties in a county and limited numbers of workers to analyze them.

That means the assessor’s office looks at properties built around the same time with a similar construction style, location, size and amenities. It uses an algorithm to help value them.

“State law requires assessors to use sales (information) to value residential property,” Corbin Sakdol, the Colorado Assessors’ Association director and a former Arapahoe County assessor, has told Colorado Community Media. Data from property sales are used to value all the unsold properties, Sakdol said.

Many factors played a role in whether an appeal succeeded, Nelson wrote. Sometimes there is an “outlier” sale in the area that inflates the property’s value — or incorrect information about the property or comparable sales.

Appeals can also succeed when a property owner provides alternate sales that are more comparable than under the mass appraisal system, Nelson said. In other cases, the condition of the property and remodeling could make a property’s original valuation incorrect.

Appeal approaches between counties

Asked why Douglas County experienced a higher rate of successful appeals than Arapahoe County — and whether the assessor’s party affiliation played a role — Damisch, a Republican, said he doesn’t know whether affiliation makes a difference. 

“With respect to the adjustment rate, I do not have an explanation for why some counties are higher or lower than others. I just know that we take the approach of trying not to be defensive in supporting our assessments,” Damisch said.

His office’s philosophy on adjustments this year was that “we want to give, given the situation in front of us, grace and deference to our property owners as much as possible,” Damisch said. 

“And I asked (staff) to ask the same question I told the public to ask, and that is: As you're looking at an appeal, could the property have sold for this as of the appraisal date, June 2022?” Damisch said, adding that he gave his staff “wide permission” to adjust values if they had any evidence to do so.

Kaiser, a Democrat, said his work as an assessor is nonpartisan. He said he could not comment on Douglas County’s numbers of approved appeals.

“At the assessor’s office, we don’t have any philosophy” in evaluating appeals, he said. “Every appeal is being seen on its own. We treat every appeal individually.”

He said his staff puts all of the information for each individual appeal into the system and analyzes the data with no predetermination of how they will adjust values.

His office has strong beliefs about educating taxpayers on the appeals process, he said, through public events and working with municipal governments.

“Our approach is: let the people know their rights, encourage them to contact the assessor's office and make (the) assessor's office accessible for every single possible taxpayer,” Kaiser said. 

How to take an appeal further

June 8 was the deadline to file an appeal with the Douglas and Arapahoe assessor’s offices.

Douglas County’s decisions for all the 2023 appeals were postmarked and mailed Aug. 15, and digital versions were to be available on the assessor’s office website either that night or the next day, Damisch said.

Arapahoe County finished mailing its notices out on Aug. 11, days before the deadline. 

Those whose appeals are denied but want to go further can raise the appeal to their county’s board of equalization.

And if a person is still dissatisfied, they can file their appeal of that decision to authorities including the state Board of Assessment Appeals.

See more information about the process at cdola.colorado.gov/appeal-of-your-valuation-reminder.