County Official Talks to Shores Residents About Assessments

Dozens of residents, many equipped with pen and paper, filled the Grosse Pointe Shores council chambers Tuesday to hear about the assessment process from a Wayne County official.

The process has been under scrutiny by many residents since late last year and the talk by Philip Mastin, the director of the Assessment and Equalization Office for Wayne County, was the second of its kind for Shores residents. 

Last month, Shores assessor Tim O'Donnell spoke to the council about the process from his role as a local assessor.

He explained how homes that are sold are considered in helping determine current values and how sometimes certain home sales might be excluded because the sale value would skew the overall picture. An example would be when buyers and sellers don't want to disclose the true purchase price and fill out paperwork to indicate a $1, $10 or $100 purchase price. 

Adding to the scrutiny is a 7 percent difference between home values for those in Wayne County versus those in Macomb County. According to figures determined at the county levels, residential properties will be dropping approximately 5.5 percent for Wayne County and 12.7 percent for Macomb County. 

Mastin said the difference comes in which home sales were included in each county's assessment study. Macomb County included four additional home sales in its study as compared with Wayne County, but those four were out of the normal date range used for the assessment study, Mastin said. 

Although he plans to speak to the Macomb County officials, nothing is likely to change for this year but Mastin said this has been a learning point for him. Next year, he said, he plans to be in communication with the Macomb County director to ensure a uniform list of home sales are used. 

Mastin, who was an assessor in Warren for more than a decade and has been in the business for years, took over the county position in late 2009, which means this is the first complete assessment process he's been involved with in the county position. 

Residents were given time to ask questions. Many residents asked specific questions of Mastin about the home sales that were included and those that were excluded. They also asked questions about how certain values were determined for particular sold homes.

Mastin answered questions to the extent he could but said he was not able to answer questions on specific properties. Those would be more appropriate for the local assessor who helps determine what's included and what isn't, he said.

One resident told Mastin if nothing could be done to resolve the discrepancy, that it would be setting the homeowners up for a strong appeals case. Another resident questioned why only 17 properties were considered for the study when more than 40 were sold during the study period, which is Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010. 

The meeting became unruly during parts of the presentation as residents were eager to ask questions but were silenced until a formal question-and-answer session began with Mastin. 

The dozens who attended for the assessment session left after Mastin spoke. Many stood in the entryway of the building discussing their disbelief about the situation.