Rating revaluations out to property owners this week

Taupo District Council’s rating revaluation exercise has recently been completed and notices will be posted out to property owners later this week.

Revaluations have been carried out on more than 21,000 properties throughout the District with the purpose of ensuring that each property has a reasonable and consistent valuation that can be used as a basis for setting rates.

The result of the revaluation is a ten percent increase in the average capital value since the last review two years ago, and a 17% increase in the average land value. Average land value movements have ranged from an 11% increase for residential land and commercial land, to 35% for dairy land, 37% for pastoral land and 44% for industrial land.

In terms of residential areas, the average land value changes range from a 6% decrease in Kinloch and a 5% decrease in Acacia Bay, to an increase of 9% in the Taupo Township, through to increases as high as 47% for Turangi township and 55% for Mangakino.

Group Manager Finance & Corporate Services, Alan Menhennet said “While the valuation may result in shifts in the balance of how much some ratepayers pay, it does not affect the total value of rates collected by Council.”

“This process means we are capturing current and consistent data to ensure we are rating properties in our District on an equitable basis,” he said.

Property owners should note that this revaluation is different in nature to a registered market valuation of a property – however it is strongly based on trends in property sales data in localised neighbourhoods, and there are a large number of physical inspections of properties carried out to ensure the integrity of the values that have been assessed.

Property Owners that have a concern with their revaluation have up until 8 January 2008 to lodge an objection.

Taupo District Council intends to carry out future revaluations every three years.