Top property values drop $11.1M

Luzerne County’s reassessment company released a list of the top 15 residential assessments last summer in response to a media request, leaving questions about what would happen once the values went through informal reviews and appeals.

The results:

The remaining 10 were lowered through challenges by property owners or adjustments made by reassessment company 21st Century Appraisals Inc.

In total, $11.1 million was taken off their combined assessments of $36 million.

21st Century initiated the most significant reduction – $3.7 million – based on evidence that a building or buildings worth that amount had been incorrectly placed on a parcel owned by Presidential Land Co. on Orchard Lane in Dallas Township.

Presidential Land had ranked highest in the original list, with an assessment of $3.89 million. The parcel’s current assessment: $159,400.

21st Century issued a revised notice in September removing the structure or structures and adding $20,000 to the value of the 6.47 acres.

Francis Pedriani, who is listed as president of Presidential Land on state corporation records, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Frank Dewees’ Dallas Township property was among those reduced. He filed a formal appeal and received a $1 million reduction, lowering his assessment from $1.8 million to $724,600.

Dewees said he hired an appraiser, who determined that the value of his 1900 farm house on 36 acres should be around $724,000.

He believes his parcel was wrongly grouped in with the neighboring up-scale Goodleigh Manor.

“I have an old farmstead. I have multimillion-dollar homes around me, but that’s not me,” Dewees said. “The original value made no sense.”

Appeal boards granted reductions exceeding $1 million on two other properties in the top 15 list:

• A 7,000-square-foot, 1951 home on 7.59 acres owned by John Metz. The assessment of the property on Lakeside Drive, Harveys Lake, went from $3.27 million to $2.1 million by reducing the value of the home but not the land, which remained at $901,800.

• F M Realty’s Lake Township property was reduced from $2.8 million to $1.6 million.

Records attribute most of the reduction to the removal of a house that had been valued at $1.18 million. The house belonged to another parcel, but the records don’t clearly indicate which one. Frank Henry, head of F M Realty, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The assessment of Dorrancetown Townhomes in Kingston will also be reduced $1.3 million because the assessor’s office discovered that several townhomes had to be put under the names of new owners, according to office records.

Kenneth Wallace’s Dallas Township property remained at $3.6 million, which now appears to be the highest residential assessment in the county.

However, Wallace will pay taxes on a property worth $2.7 million because he has signed up for the Clean and Green tax-break program.

Under Clean and Green, land is valued for its worth as agriculture, woodland, pasture or open space – not its development value in the real estate market.

The law requires the county to value the home and 1 acre on which it sits at market value, rather than the reduced agricultural value applied to vacant land.

Wallace and his wife, Susan, own 40 acres. Their 11,700-square-foot mansion remains valued at $2.58 million in the Clean and Green program, and the program knocks $869,000 off their land value.

21st Century has estimated that the combined school, county and local millage rate would be a maximum 15.342 in Dallas Township. That means Wallace will save an estimated $13,300 on property taxes because the taxes would be up to $55,427 on the full assessment and $42,095 on the Clean and Green assessment.

Developer Rob Mericle’s 16,305-square-foot home in Jackson Township ranked 11th on the original list at $1.88 million, but 21st Century later upped the value to $3 million through a revised notice.

Mericle convinced an assessment appeal board to reduce the value to $2.5 million. He will pay taxes on a property worth $2.1 million because he also signed up for Clean and Green, according to the assessor’s office.