By Heather Michon
Correspondent
Fluvanna County homeowners received their real estate reassessments over the past week.
They have questions.
By law, Virginia localities must conduct reassessments every two to six years to ensure real estate taxes are set based on relatively current fair market values. Fluvanna holds reassessment every two years.
This time around, appraisals were up an average of 25 percent county-wide – but many residents saw their valuations skyrocket by 40-60 percent.
Fred Pearson of Pearson Appraisal Service told the Board of Supervisors in January that many residents would see this type of spike in property values, saying that market forces drove the steep increases and were being seen in other parts of Virginia.
After the reassessment letters started arriving in mailboxes, local social media channels filled up with residents surprised, angered, and concerned by the high valuations.
Included in the letter was a chart showing the past two tax years, plus a line for 2025 showing the percentage change from the previous year and a “tax amount” based on the current real estate tax rate of $0.844 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Supervisor Mike Goad (Fork Union) explained on his Facebook page that “state code mandates that an amount be listed in the ‘Tax Amount’ column, regardless of whether or not a locality has adopted a tax rate in the current year’s budget cycle.”
However, the Board of Supervisors is likely to lower the tax rate to a level that would generate the same amount of revenue based on these new valuations, a process known as equalization. This process will blunt the sharp increase indicated on the reassessment letters.
Deputy County Administrator Kelly Belanger Harris said the county had received many calls about assessments, and they have now set up a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on the county website to answer the most common concerns.
The page can be found at https://www.fluvannacounty.org/bos/page/reassessment-notices-and-faqs
Residents can appeal their reassessments directly to Pearson Appraisal Services any time before February 24. Information on the appeal process is included in the letter, and residents can call Pearson at 1-800-767-0856 on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Appeals can also be made to the county’s Board of Equalization after Feb. 24.
The Board of Supervisors will set a maximum advertised tax rate on Feb. 26, and this will give residents a clearer picture of how high their tax bill will go.
Supervisors will set the tax rates at or below that maximum advertised rate when they adopt the FY26 budget in mid-April. That final tax rate will be used to calculate the bills that go out to residents in May.
