Union County board upholds county valuations in series of bank-branch property appeals; accepts one untimely application

The Union County Board of Equalization and Review on Wednesday heard appeals for a series of commercial parcels—mostly former and current bank branches—and voted to uphold the county's assessed values for all contested parcels except one, where the board accepted an untimely application for hearing.

The board accepted the late appeal from Timothy and Martha Charo (parcel 9247006) after the appellants said illness and confusion about filing protocol caused the delay. "I have been sick with pneumonia, and I didn't know about the protocol," appellant Martha Charo told the board during her brief appearance. The board voted to accept the untimely application and send the matter to deliberation.

Why it matters: The hearings addressed how assessors should value older, purpose-built bank buildings in a market where banks build smaller branches and customers increasingly use mobile and online banking. Owners’ agents argued that large legacy bank buildings suffer "functional obsolescence"—that significant portions of the buildings are no longer used for banking—and therefore should be assessed at substantially lower values. County staff responded with sales and cost evidence, arguing recent sales and land values support the county assessments.

Owner presentations: John Steber, the owners’ representative (identified in the record as representing several bank-property appellants and introduced as affiliated with Ernst & Young), repeatedly told the board that many bank branches built before about 2015 are larger than current branch footprints and that “roughly half or more of this bank is not being utilized to its full extent.” Steber presented pro forma…