Lackawanna County panel urges property owners to file appeals, explains appraisal thresholds and timelines

LACKAWANNA COUNTY — County officials and a panel of local attorneys and an appraiser told a packed town hall at Abington Heights High School that property owners must file formal appeals by Aug. 1 if they wish to challenge newly mailed reassessments and that certain properties will require state-certified appraisals to be heard.

“August 1 is the deadline to appeal,” said attorney Anthony Loma, who explained the new consolidated county assessment process and the timeline and administrative steps residents must follow for informal and formal appeals.

The panel included Commissioner Chris Chermack, real-estate attorneys Pat Lavelle and Anthony Loma, and certified residential appraiser Jay Conrad Bosley. PJ Labelle, serving as moderator, said the county mailed new valuation notices to more than 110,000 properties and that those notices went out Friday, June 20 to allow a 40-day window before appeals start.

Why it matters: The county’s reassessment resets assessed values to fair-market estimates that will be used to set millage rates later; county officials and panelists said state law requires the overall taxing bodies to be revenue neutral but individual taxpayers can see increases or decreases in tax bills. Many attendees said the new valuations are substantially higher than they expected and raised affordability concerns for seniors and fixed-income households.

What residents were told to do

Loma and Lavelle walked residents through the administrative steps. Loma said the county’s assessor website now lists each parcel’s 2026 assessment and that filing a residential…