Dear Editor:
If you live in the Town of Onancock beware the tax assessor. Not only do town residents pay town real estate taxes on top of the county tax, but it appears that in addition the tax assessor has it in for you.
We live in the town of Onancock, just barely. Our property forms a corner of the town line and neighbors directly behind our house and adjacent to us on the south side are county residents. We received a 26% increase in our assessment and our neighbors to the north (in town limits) had theirs raised by 20%. Our neighbor to the south — in the county — saw a 1.05% increase. Across the creek that forms our western property line, increases were 1.03%, 3.8%, 4%, and 5% on the four neighboring houses.
Lest anyone think this is an anomaly of our location, consider that a home across from the marina, in the town, was raised 24.8%. Directly across Onancock Creek three of the lovely homes along Hermitage Road saw increases of 2.1%, 1.6%, and 2.1%.
Clearly there is a huge disparity from one side of the town line to the other. As a side note I also looked up the increase for a friend in Captains Cove; his assessment went up 34%.
I urge all Onancock residents to investigate inequities in their assessments by using the county GIS system, AccoMap (available online) and to contest these absolutely unfair assessments by filing appeals to the county assessor’s office.
Don Ruthig,
Onancock
