Such programs tend to suffer a wide range of error and can overstate or understate values inordinately. Appeals Adding to the strain of Prop 8 assessments has been a staggering increase in the number of assessment appeals being filed each year. The huge increase is partially the public's response to the general decline in value accompanying the real estate recession in California, and partially the result of the Assessors' inability to deal with that large volume. Statewide, assessment appeal volumes have increased by about a factor of 10 since 1991. Sacramento County, which averaged approximately 700 appeals per year between 1978 and 1991, received 7400 appeals in 1995, and over 6200 appeals in 1996.
Appeals are very labor and time intensive and have become a serious problem for everyone concerned.
Most counties are as much as two years behind in processing assessment appeals. Return to the top of Property Taxation in California Page Supplemental Assessments As part of an effort to increase local revenues, the legislature closed what was generally regarded as a loophole in property tax law in 1983. That so-called loophole deferred the enrollment of any changes in ownership and new construction value changes until the Lien date following the date those activities occurred. A bill passed in 1983 created Supplemental Assessments which became immediately effective as of the date a change in ownership occurred or new construction was completed. As a result, value and tax increases or decreases relative to existing assessment rolls began the moment an activity occurred, instead of being deferred to the next Lien Date.