Owner of multiple Oklahoma County apartment complexes appeals large valuation increases; assessor says documentation arrived too late

At a May 19 special meeting of the Board of Equalization of Oklahoma County, property owner Lou McGinnis asked the board to lower market valuations on a group of apartment properties that the assessor's office increased sharply for 2025.

McGinnis said the assessor's office set values for multiple apartment complexes far above prior years and that higher interest rates, rising insurance and utilities, and falling occupancies have reduced the properties' income. "The occupancy on both of these properties has dropped down to 80%," McGinnis said, adding that insurance and utility costs have risen and that his rents have not increased to match.

The assessor's office told the board it did not receive McGinnis's detailed operating statements, comparables and insurance-cost documentation until the appeals were already finalized. "We never received any of this information until May," an assessor's office representative told the board. "The first evidence we ever saw on this was delivered to us the same day it was delivered to you." The assessor said staff had sent multiple reminder emails and had attempted outreach but had not received the owner's materials in time to incorporate them into the informal review.

Board Chair Helen Hart Thompson told McGinnis that, because the appeals are appellate (de novo) reviews and the informal-review deadlines govern what the assessor's office may consider, the board could not accept material that had not been part of the assessor's file. "I'm very sorry that we had this miscommunication, but the law is what it is," Thompson said. The board said it will close the hearings for the items today and issue written decisions after discussing the record at a session scheduled for Friday; parties will be notified by mail.

Examples of the contested valuations cited at the hearing included: 4750 NW 203rd (assessor: $6,496,628; owner: $4,589,791), another 20-Third Street property the assessor placed above $6 million while the owner proposed about $3.99 million, and the Solaire Apartments (assessor: $22,000,737; owner: $12,596,167). McGinnis submitted operating statements, insurance-cost schedules and local comparables asserting lower income and rents than proximate properties; the assessor said those materials arrived too late to be processed for the informal stage.

The assessor described the 2025 valuations as derived from a new, countywide apartment model and income-based analysis, a methodology the office said it is expanding. The assessor's representative said the new modeling used a broad universe of properties and regression techniques to estimate market values and that, had the assessor received McGinnis's data in time, staff would have reviewed it as with other appeals.

McGinnis questioned the timing and said he had made efforts to make contact. He told the board he had been managing the properties for decades and that managers and a posted phone number should have allowed direct contact. The assessor's office said it had sent at least three email requests and an additional call from an analyst asking for lease rolls, rent rolls and profit-and-loss statements.

The board repeatedly advised property owners to check spam/junk mail folders, to add alternate email addresses, and to call the assessor's office within the informal window if they believed email notifications were not received. Chair Thompson said the onus is on property owners to supply documentation in the assessor's informal-review period and that the board could not treat late submissions differently from other appeals without compromising fairness.

The board closed the hearings on the multifamily accounts for today and said it would review the existing record and deliver written decisions after a Friday meeting. Parties will receive notice of the board's determinations by mail.