Philly had to finalize 2020 property values in March. So why did 30,000 taxpayers just receive new assessments?

When Jacob Russell heard in April that three-quarters of residential properties in Philadelphia would have increased assessments — and tax bills — in 2020, he rushed to check the assessment of his own home.

Russell’s rowhouse in the Washington Square West neighborhood had a 29 percent assessment increase this year, so he was relieved to see in online property records that he would not receive another large hike in 2020.

Then he came home from vacation this month and found a surprise in his mailbox: a notice that his assessment would increase again in 2020, after all — by 23 percent.

“It was just surprising and confusing and frustrating," Russell said.

Russell will now have a tax hike of more than $1,600 in 2020, with a total bill of $8,784.

» READ MORE: Philly’s 2020 assessments are out. Here’s how to calculate your new tax bill.

He is one of about 30,000 property owners who received assessment notices dated June 28, three months after the March 31 deadline by which state law requires assessors to set values for the following year.

Mike Suley, former assessment director in Allegheny County, questioned the propriety of the Office of Property Assessment’s actions. “You can’t go in after that [March 31] certification and pull a rabbit out of your hat and send out 30,000 letters,” he said.

The Office of Property Assessment sends some late notices every year, said Mike Dunn, a spokesperson for the city. This year, he said, about 5,000 properties were “held out for review” because the calculations used to revalue them based on trends in the real estate market appeared off and could not be corrected before March 31.

An additional 25,000 properties were also reviewed and just got new values because they had recent construction or renovations, Dunn said. Although OPA collects data about construction, database limitations and delays in receiving information made it difficult to update all accounts by March 31.

The net increase of $834 million in assessed value of those 30,000 properties will result in $9.5 million in additional tax revenue for the city, according to an Inquirer analysis using assessment data provided by the city.

In support of the city’s actions, Dunn cited a state law that allows revisions to assessments “at any time in the year."

But homeowners who got the June assessment notices had no way of knowing that their properties remained under review until the letters arrived in their mailboxes.

The city indicated in a document posted this spring explaining the 2020 assessment methods that 40,000 properties, or about 6 percent of all properties in the city, were under additional review. But, Dunn said, homeowners were not notified if they were in that group. The only notice they got was the June letter.

That letter was even more confusing for some homeowners because the deadline it listed for appealing new values had already passed. The letters, dated June 28, listed May 24 as the deadline to file an informal appeal, known as a first-level review.

Dunn said the May 24 date was an error and “we apologize for the confusion." He said new letters will be sent correcting that deadline, which is July 31 for property owners who got June notices.

Ryan Taylor of Chestnut Hill said the incorrect date on the letter only added to the confusion and frustration he felt when he got it.

“Even if it is a typo," he said, “I imagine it would discourage other residents from appealing.”

Taylor, whose twin home on Abington Avenue had a 30 percent assessment increase this year, received one of the June 28 letters notifying him of an additional 13.6 percent increase. He said he also has not had construction done on the home, which he and his wife purchased in 2017, and he plans to appeal the new value.

“It was a shock,” Taylor said of receiving the assessment notice.

Suley, the former Allegheny County assessment director, said values can change during the year only if there is an appeal, a physical change to a property, or a clerical error in the assessment. Philadelphia’s explanation that 5,000 properties needed an additional review of their trend analysis does not appear to fit into one of those categories, he said.

“All the properties should be trended at the same time using the same methodology,” he said.

Even for supplemental mailings, Suley said, 30,000 seems like a high number based on his experience.

Dunn said leaving those values the same until 2021 would be unfair to property owners whose values already changed, or to the homeowners whose supplemental mailings resulted in assessment decreases.

“The notices were mailed in as timely a fashion as possible once the new values were determined,” he said.

But Russell, who plans to appeal the new assessment of his home on Lombard Street, said the mailing left him with more questions than answers. He said he does not understand what kind of error his new value is correcting, or why it is changing.

“It feels like a very opaque and impenetrable process,” he said.