Tax question leads to 20-year-old county assessment error

Property values brought Fred Wilgenburg to the Beaver Creek Township tax and equalization meeting last month, and a 20-year-old assessing error brought him to the county commissioners May 2.
“So, I am here to ask the county to fix my rates going forward, as they said they would, but also that the county would fix what was overcharged for the past 18, 19 years,” Wilgenburg said. “I don’t know the exact amount.”
At the Tuesday morning meeting, the assessor’s office didn’t know the exact amount either.
The market value of Wilgenburg’s 2.5-acre acreage near Valley Springs was decreased by $100,000 as a result of the township meeting. Current market value is $325,000.
But before assessor Rachel Jacobs begins the task to determine Wilgenburg’s tax overpayment every year since 2003, commissioners may not have the authority to issue a two-decades-old refund.
“Right, wrong or otherwise, there is some burden to homeowners to question the value, if it is not right. Once you don’t do that, you’ve waived your right to adjust that later. That is just the way the tax system works,” said county attorney Jeff Haubrich.
“I am not sure if the board would have any authority to go back to do some of those prior years. I don’t know if you (as the current commissioners) have authority to make that expenditure.”
Annually the Rock County Assessor’s Office issues property valuation tax statements to Rock County property owners.
The forms, mailed in the spring of each year and available online at the county’s website, detail increases or decreases in market values for the next tax year.
Meetings are scheduled in each township and municipality for property owners to attend and question the information on the notification.
Wilgenburg attended the April 10 meeting for Beaver Creek Township.
He questioned why his and his wife, Amy’s, acreage increased in value by $87,000 in 2023 and will increase an additional $71,000 in 2024.
“As I talked about our property — much of our house was moved in from Iowa in 2003, when we moved here, and it was built around 1940 — they were surprised. They were not aware of that (the home was moved in),” Wilgenburg said.
The assessor at the time, who was contracted by township supervisors, listed the “effective age” of the Wilgenburg home as a new construction in 2003.
The permit to move the home on Tenth Avenue near Valley Springs did not stipulate the age of the home.
“When your home is built, we assume it lives 100 years,” Jacobs said. “So, we put what is called an ‘effective age’ on that home, which is usually the same age as the year it is built.”
However, the effective age of the Wilgenburg home is not 2003, but 1975, as determined by the extent of the remodel and square-foot addition completed in 2003.
Beaver Creek Township’s contracted assessor didn’t know that the 1940s home on a new foundation with a new roof and new siding was not a newly built home.
The assessor noted an inside inspection was never completed in the Wilgenburg home, where finishes would have revealed it was not a new home.
In 2003 the Wilgenburg home was valued at $177,000.
“The reason I didn’t question it before is that the valuation increases were not so large that it caught my wife’s and my attention like it has the last couple of years,” Wilgenburg said.
“I didn’t raise a concern because I naturally thought the property was correctly assessed way back then.”
Increases in market value of 30 percent in 2023 and 18 percent for 2024 were based on countywide acreage sales.
The Rock County Assessor’s Office became the contract assessor for Beaver Creek Township in 2020, the same year evaluation records were computerized from previous contracted assessors, who made manual notes in large binders.
Jacobs said an exterior-only inspection was completed on the Wilgenburg home in July 2020.
She said assessors rarely view a home’s interior to verify the inspection records prior to the mailing of the annual valuation notices.
Notices to schedule an inside inspection are rarely returned.
“People don’t want us in their homes, but when the value is wrong, they yell at us that we haven’t been in their home,” Jacobs said, adding anyone can request an interior home inspection at any time by contacting the assessor’s office.
Since the April township meeting, the interior of the Wilgenburg home has been inspected, which led to the lower effective age and decreased market value for future tax implications.
Commissioners tabled a decision about a refund for the Wilgenburgs until questions about the County Board’s authority are answered.