Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Bonnie Mitchell thought there must have been some mistake when she received her new property-tax bill at the start of the year.Her new appraisal for the 1,554-square-foot 1927 family house just south of Nationwide Children’s Hospital that she has lived in since 1970 and inherited from her now-deceased parents was up 343%. Her monthly tax installment payment was going from about $60 to around $365, taking up about 27% of her sole income, Social Security.Her “pre-payment” bill alone was $1,478, just to get her tax escrow balance back to even.”Honestly, I thought it was a mistake,” said Mitchell, 65. “Then when I realized that it was real, I thought something nefarious was going on. … And I was really in a panic. It’s horrible.”I was just panicked to think that I may no longer be able to afford the home that I grew up in, just very frightening. And it still is very frightening.”Bonnie Mitchell, 65, lives on a fixed income from Social Security, and saw her property taxes skyrocket by more than 500% last January, almost forcing her out of her home, which would have taken 27% of her total income. With the help of Legal Aid and others, she was able to get the taxes adjusted downward.While the median single-family parcel went up by about 47% during the last property reappraisal, Mitchell owned one of about 32,000 single-family properties — or more than one in 10 — which saw their appraisals at least double, and in some cases increase by multiples, according to a Dispatch review of records.The number of tax delinquencies leading to defaults is up dramatically, more than 800 just in the first half of 2024, compared to just 479 for all of 2023, said Franklin County Treasurer Cheryl Brooks Sullivan. The number of delinquent parcels hit 17,743 for the first half of 2024, up from 11,731 for all of 2023.The increase was so pronounced that Brooks Sullivan halted all tax lien sales this year in response to give homeowners time to come up with payment plans before being potentially evicted and their homes auctioned to pay their back taxes.Also, Board of Revision filings, where property owners challenge their appraised values for taxing purposes, hit 11,187 this year, more than in the previous four years combined and up 46% over 2017, the year following the last full-blown reappraisal, when 7,681 owners filed.Paul Bryson, managing attorney in charge of property-tax cases for Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, who represented Mitchell in challenging her increase before the Franklin County Board of Revision, said Mitchell’s situation is becoming more and more common.”This is very widespread,” Bryson said. “I have personally like 10 or 11 of these cases right now, where as in previous years I would have had 2 or 3.” And prior to six years ago Legal Aid didn’t even do property tax cases, he added.Just the value of Mitchell’s land had risen 26% above the previous value of her land and house combined.Added to the perfect storm facing Mitchell were the tax increases Columbus voters were handing her: 7.7 new mills for Columbus City Schools and another 1.5 mills for the Columbus Metropolitan Library.Bonnie Mitchell, 65, lives on a fixed income from Social Security, and saw her property taxes skyrocket by more than 500% last January. More than 32,000 single-family parcels in Franklin County saw their value at least double in the recent reassessment.Ohio law does not give the county auditor any tools to slow down historic-value increases, Stinziano said. That’s why he has lobbied state lawmakers for new tools like deferred payments and “circuit breakers” that tie property-tax increases to the ability to pay. Under current state law, auditors can’t take into account how much a tax abatement might increase a sales price, which then transfer to the unabated neighbors, he said.Because most buyers have a maximum monthly payment amount that drives what they’re willing to pay for a house or condo, taking a large portion of the property taxes out of that equation typically allows the asking price to go up, said Judy Minister, a Columbus real estate agent.”We definitely used it in our marketing, as all agents would do, because it is transferable” to new buyers, and therefore is valuable, Minister said. “…They can go higher in price if they don’t have a big property tax bill, and more and more that’s a big factor. … (Abatements) would motivate a buyer. they would absolutely, and they would be willing to pay more, because they would be getting a benefit.”Stinziano “personally would love to have more ability or different triggers in place to make sure property owners aren’t going to be property taxed out of their homes,” he said. Because the auditor by law can only examine the outside of your house, “property owners play a huge role” in Ohio in letting the county know they disagree with a reappraisal value based on what’s inside the home.The first line of defense are “informal reviews,” in which about 20,000 property owners participated in last year, Stinziano said. After that comes formal complaints before the county Board of Review, and Franklin County is the only county in Ohio to offer a mediation process that can avoid a case going to a full-blown hearing, he added.Stinziano also notes that voters directly control the amount of mills they charge themselves, and they shouldn’t take that responsibility lightly. In other words, vote.”That’s why you’ll hear a lot of advocacy up until the election from the auditor’s office on the value of your vote,” understanding the direct correlation that new levies have on your tax bill, Stinziano said. “Every dollar has an impact.”The rule of thumb is that anyone spending more than 30% of their income on housing is housing-cost burdened, and Mitchell was close to that amount solely because of her tax bill – her mortgage has been paid off for years.”There’s no way I could have paid a mortgage payment and these taxes,” said Mitchell, a retired warehouse worker. “I wouldn’t have been able to make it. I mean I’m barely making it now.”A nearby house on South Ohio Avenue that had previously been valued at $90,000 suddenly flipped last August for $329,000, and the ad listing noted in all capital letters: “TAX ABATEMENT IN PROGRESS,” Bryson noted.Bryson filed for Mitchell before the Board of Revision, and used mediation to negotiate her total appraisal down to $165,000 – still almost three times what it had been the year before. Her monthly installment for taxes is now about $200.Mitchell said it doesn’t sit well with her that’s she’s paying significantly more taxes than neighbors who are much better off. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and the City Council vastly expanded the pool of potential homes that can receive an abatement late last year to the entire city – even affluent areas near Worthington and New Albany.”It’s not fair, and there’s nothing fair in this whole situation,” Mitchell said. “What can I say, but it’s unfair, and I don’t understand the law.”They’re squeezing blood out of people. They’ve gone beyond squeezing people.”wbush@gannett.com@ReporterBushThis article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Franklin County property tax delinquencies spike after appraisal
