County reappraisal prompts 10,533 appeals and $3.1B valuation reduction, tax administrator says

Durham County’s 2025 reappraisal produced an unprecedented volume of property‑tax appeals and materially affected the city’s FY27 revenue outlook, the county’s tax administrator told Durham City Council.

Kiara Doyle, Durham County Tax Administrator, said the county received 10,533 appeals after a revaluation that captured a large run‑up in property values between 2019 and 2025. That appeals volume far exceeded the 7,500 appeals staff used earlier in budget holdback calculations and contributed to an approximately $3.1 billion reduction in assessed value relative to earlier staff estimates used in the FY27 proposal.

Doyle explained that the reappraisal process analyzes market data across a two‑year window and that the county turned in schedules while some market indicators (especially commercial income and vacancy signals) were already shifting. Many commercial appellants supplied income‑based evidence—citing reduced rents and higher vacancy—which yielded large valuation adjustments in a relatively small number of high‑dollar cases. In contrast, residential appeals were far more numerous but tended to produce smaller adjustments per parcel.

Council members pressed Doyle and county staff for more granular specifics: how many appeals resulted in “no change” versus a value reduction, how the reductions split between residential and commercial properties, where the largest reductions were geographically, and whether the Board of Equalization and Review had sufficient capacity to process a late surge of filings. Doyle said the county will provide the requested breakdowns and noted that while only a couple hundred appeals were filed after the formal deadline, the last‑minute surge of filings before the cutoff strained the office’s ability to predict final appeal totals when budget holdbacks were set.

The BOER, Doyle said, is a neutral body appointed by county commissioners that considers evidence across the cost, sales-comparison and income approaches; it and the state Property Tax Commission have discretion to uphold, raise, or lower assessed values. Council members asked about BOER appointment authority, term length and transparency (minutes and decisions) and requested future joint briefings with county officials ahead of the next reappraisal cycle (2029) to improve timing and data sharing.

What’s next: city and county staff agreed to coordinate a follow‑up deep dive before the next reappraisal, and council asked the county to provide a dataset of appeals showing parcel-level changes, property type, location and whether each appeal resulted in a value change or no change.