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November 14, 2025 - 9 A.M.
ZEBULON - These meetings are open to the public and are usually held on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays at 9 a.m. at the EMA building located on the left as you turn into the Public Works driveway across from the Rec Fields. This meeting was rescheduled because the regular meeting date fell on a federal holiday when county offices were closed.
Members in attendance include Vice Chair Lyn Smith, Tim Ingram, and Gary Hammock along with Chief Appraiser Greg Hobbs and Board Secretary Emily Morris. Chair Parrish Swift came into the meeting about 9:30 a.m.
1. Call to Order: 9:06 a.m.
2. Approval of the Agenda
Motion to amend the agenda to include Mr. Conner and Mr. Leslie as invited guests. Approved.
3. Invocation
4. Pledge of Allegiance
5. Approval of the October 28, 2025 Minutes
Motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting. Approved 5-0.
6. Public Comment: None.
7. Invited Guest.
Mr. Conner. Bought a house this year. $629,000. Assessments mailed out in May so it went to the builder. Got the tax bill for $770,000. 22% raise. Asked to drop it to $629,000 based on the fact that he would have filed an appeal, but he didn’t receive the assessment. Morton. Motion for the homeowner to provide appraisal and other paperwork so it can be reviewed by Norman Associates and the Chief Appraiser to investigate this. Approved.
Mr. Leslie. Bought at 62 acre tract about 5 years ago. No improvements. Bought one piece of property with a plat that has a previous division line. Pike BOC 8.25.20 meeting to move forward with abandonment on Williams Road. Tax bill for property shows 2 parcels. Planning and Zoning doesn’t recognize it as a lot because the road has been abandoned. 60 acres in conservation with improvements. Knew that he would be subdividing the property at some point. Had the property replatted into 3 acres of 20 acres each. Wants to keep it all in conservation with 3 parcels only. How to go forward? It can be subdivided without a breach because he continued the conservation. Reupped the CUVA but has been getting a bill on the 2 acre parcel for the past 5 years. Absorb the 2 acre tract? Morton. Receive the written request and documentation so it can be reviewed. Have to deal with the existing CUVA and doesn’t want to breach. Motion for land owner to provide the documentation to the Chief Appraiser so it can be reviewed. Approved.
Mr. Smith. 2004 had 3 lots with 2.0 acres cut out on his property. 2013 has a note that the 2 acreage was put back into the entire CUVA. Separate tax bill for years. It’s in CUVA. Now it’s on 1 but wanted to have it put back into the CUVA with everything else. It’s not a 2 acre lot anymore according to what he’s been told. Morton.
Consolidated for CUVA but the 2 acre lot hasn’t gone away. It’s still a lot of record, but everything has been consolidated for CUVA.
Norman and Associates. 2 days of Board of Equalization. Lassiter has a conservation easement application. 145 acres. Cannot build or disturb the property. Non-CUVA tract. He had to provide information to the Board of Equalization. Can’t hunt on it and has a lot of restrictions.
Swift arrived 9:30 a.m.
Completed all of the appeals. McLeRoy appeals. Couldn’t do anything with some of the properties. Rentals were adjusted. Had to work with some of the larger tracts and met with them on every single parcel. Not a lot of large land sales to base decision on. Working on commercial now. Morton. Waivers that have been negotiated have not been approved yet. The ones from the 6th need to be reviewed and signed. Joe. Will provide all of the documentation to board members.
Peachstate. Sasser. Had his house at over $300,000. We had it as all completed in the house but it isn’t completed yet. Has pictures to show the house. Tried to meet him at the house but he wouldn’t unlock the gate when Tom was there. Had to provide pictures.
2 going to Superior Court. Brown on Cook Road and Garner. If it finally makes it to Superior Court, it will be a battle of the experts.
Have to find a way to separate the value from the taxes. We need to be able to send something to the taxpayer to say what the value of the property is. Morton. The legislature changed the law that messed up our notices in Pike County. The legislature is going to look at this again next year. We could do a supplement along with the notices. Maybe do a letter and send it earlier than the assessment notice going out. The assessment notices are confusing. A value notice letter.
One more day left for the Board of Equalization.
Commercial and subdivisions are next on the list for Norman Appraisals. The Board thanked them for their work for the county.
8. Board Member Report
Ingram. Does this go in the minutes? Morton. They have to record motions, votes, and who was here. You can make a motion for what you want to have in the minutes. He said that he would like to put the Board Member Reports in the minutes, and was told, We’ll put it in there.
When y’all go to a property, what is your process? You go to the door, and no one comes to the door. Then they go ahead and do their business unless they have been told they can’t. Notices have gone out to homeowners already through the newspaper, etc. But they said that they don’t go through a gate.
Commissioner’s meeting on Wednesday. We need an apology from a commissioner. He said that it wasn’t posted. What is the process? Morton. The county website had the original date posted. But the problem has been fixed. [Note from the Editor: There was a lot more discussion here, but the bottom line is still that the problem was identified AND fixed.]
9. Chief Appraiser Report
Norman Appraisal is assessing commercial properties. Over 300 total with 100 visited so far. 1/3 are updated and ready for reappraisal.
Both the office and Norman Appraisal have been busy with Board of Equalization cases. A few still need to be heard, and a couple may go to Superior Court.
Went to training. Appraising as many properties as possible as we move forward. Asking for only 1 meeting in November. December 9 is a day when he will be in class per the consent order. Asking to reschedule the class to December 16. Morton. May have to have a special called meeting in December. Settlement conference has to be given within 30 days of the notice.
Motion to change the Tuesday, December 9 meeting to Tuesday, December 16. Approved.
Motion to cancel the November 25 meeting. Approved.
Side note. Tom visited 144 commercial parcels. Entered info in 50 parcels.
10. Old Business
a. Car Appeal
Knowles 2012 Chevrolet 2500 HD
Paid. $6,000. State set at 10,275. Valued at 12,263.
Whitehouse 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
State set at 14,200. NADA 15288. Paid 13,500. Did a no change last time. Motion to leave it as it is. Approved.
11. New Business
a. Non-Disclosure
All are law enforcement. Motion to approve. Approved. Morton. Minutes should acknowledge that Swift is here. He had told Smith to continue, but he went ahead and took over the meeting.
b. Board Consideration Hand (O19A-078)
Motion to remove the 50% on Hand evaluation. Approved.
c. Approval/Denial Homestead Exemptions S5. (Disabled Veteran under 65)
Motion to approve. Approved.
d. Approval/Denial Tax Refund/Relief Application Roth
We owe them the money? Yes. 3 years. Motion to make recommendation to refund 3 years. Approved.
e. Board Consideration Reeves
Productivity has nothing to do with a small tract. Part of the review and reappraisal. Raise them all up or leave low this year and raise up next year. Joe. 2026 have things correctly with productivity. All small tracts. Was supposed to be a 1, but the data entry needed to be corrected. The values were not correct. Morton. 3 separate parcels. 2 have errors. If correct the errors, the value will go up. Consideration is not correcting until next year. Swift. Proper procedure? Morton. She didn’t file an appeal. Make the correction for next year so don’t hurt her this year. Motion to make consideration on all for next year. Approved.
f. Sales Ratio
This new house bill has even confused WinGap who is the vendor for the program that we are using. 300 sales so Chief Appraiser can advise the state that this is the notice before cleaning things up. The 300 sales will affect the final numbers. Motion to acknowledge receipt of the before ratio. Approved.
g. Approval/Denial Correction of Homestead for Filingim
Motion to approve putting the homestead back on. Approved.
1. Real Property
a. 2025 Property Tax Appeals Recommended Changes
None.
b. 2025 Appeal waivers (16) with fair market revisions
Motion to approve. Approved 5-0.
c. Approval/Denial CUVA in lieu of an appeal Brown
She didn’t get her 45 day period on this because she didn’t get an assessment. Motion to approve the appeal in lieu of appeal. 2nd. Discussion. Can file from January 1 to April 1. Have 45 days from the notice. But she didn’t receive the notice. Motion was approved.
2. Personal Property
a. Car appeals
McPherson 2023 Ford F150
State has it at $26,025. Paid $1 for it. That has no bearing on this. Motion to set the value at state value of $26,025. Approved.
12. Public Comment:
David Paulson. William Smith property. Question about the lots with the legal description. How to make things less confusing. An attorney drew this up for him.
13. Attorney Comment:
The appeals process went fairly smooth. Board of Equalization did time limits to move the process forward. 5 minutes for each person and the board so 15 minutes for each case. When the mistake was identified, discussion was held and agreements were made on the spot. Out of ones without a mistake or error, the county went with information from Norman Appraisals. Everything was based on actual evidence. The Board, Chief Appraiser, and Norman Appraisals were all present to determine if a mistake was made and needed to be corrected. Morton. Norman and Associates did a great job on this. Danyeal did a good job with getting things on the big screen too. Very helpful.
14. Approval to adjourn.
Motion to adjourn. 10:35 a.m.
Here are links to some of the past meetings that Pike County Times has attended. There are more that are slowly going online. Budget time and the county commission are my focus right now.
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - October 14, 2025 - 9 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor8.14.25.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS SPECIAL CALLED MEETING - May 13, 2025 - 9 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor5.13.25.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS SPECIAL CALLED MEETING - December 9, 2024 - 9 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor11.19.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - November 19, 2024 - 4:30 p.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor11.19.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - August 20, 2024 - 11 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor8.5.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - August 5, 2024 - 11 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor8.5.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - July 16, 2024 - 4 p.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor7.16.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - June 18, 2024 - 11 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor6.18.24.html
Board of Assessors Leaves Sales Ratio at $91 Per Square Foot
By Editor Becky Watts
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor6.3.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - May 21, 2024 - 11 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor5.21.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - March 7, 2024 - 11 a.m.
http://pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor3.7.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - February 6, 2024 - 4:30 p.m.
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor2.6.24.html
Click here to read: "BREAKING NEWS: Commission Votes to Appeal Fine and Request a State Review of the Board of Assessors" http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/BREAKINGNEWSrequestforreview2.2.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - January 18, 2024 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor1.18.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - January 4, 2024 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor1.4.24.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - December 19, 2023 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor12.19.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - December 5, 2023 - 11:30 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor12.5.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - November 9, 2023 - 11:30 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor11.9.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - October 17, 2023 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor10.17.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - October 3, 2023 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor10.3.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - September 19, 2023 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor9.19.23.html
BOARD OF ASSESSORS REGULAR MEETING - September 7, 2023 - 11:00 AM
http://www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/taxassessor9.7.23.html