To the editor:

Last July, I purchased a home in Lawrence that had been sitting on the market for over a year. At the time of the purchase, my wife and I paid $92,000. Having paid so little, you can imagine what a big surprise it was when our property tax appraisal was mailed to us with a value of $110,000, an appraised value of nearly 20 percent higher than the market value.

Following the traditional protocol, I filed a protest with the Douglas County Treasurer’s Office, gave them copies of all the sale paperwork, and after nearly three months of hearing nothing back, was rejected on my protest, without any justification given.

At what point will our treasurer’s office realize that “appraised value” is a meaningless concept, unless substantiated with real economic market values. Put simply, your house should only be worth and consequently should only be taxed for what you can legitimately sell it for. It is everyday examples like this of government lacking any form of transparency in their processes that creates such great skepticism of government within the community.

Matthew Herbert,
Lawrence