Roseville

City disputes American House high tax assessment claim

By Sara Kandel
C & G Staff Writer

ROSEVILLE — Outgoing City Manager Steve Truman notified council that American House, a senior living community with two locations in Roseville, is disputing its tax assessment by $100,000.

He brought the matter to council’s attention at a Feb. 7 special meeting to seek approval for the city to look into hiring a private assessor to help reach an agreement with the facility prior to going to a tax tribunal or help mitigate some of the loss should they have to go to a tax tribunal and the panel there sides with American House.

“They feel that their tax bill, just the city part, is $100,000 too large,” Truman told council.

Council approved Truman’s request to look for representation, and a contract for the work will be up for approval at the Feb. 14 meeting.

The city has an in-house assessing department and a contracted assessor, but due to the specific nature of the facility and the high amount of its dispute, a private assessor with experience with such facilities will be brought in. Truman estimated the cost for such an assessor to be about a tenth of the cost of the possible loss.

“Basically it’s a $12,000 investment to get as much of that $100,000 as we can,” he said.

The nature of the facility is tricky, officials say, because American House isn’t really the typical apartment complex. It offers senior housing, meals and programs; yet it’s not a nursing home either. On the city’s website, the property is classified as multi-use commercial.

The facility would like to be taxed as a typical apartment complex, though, according to Roseville officials.

“They have a unique situation, so I think the city is handling it the right way by hiring somebody to do the appraisals,” said City Controller Bob Cady. “It’s not like they could move out today, and somebody could move in tomorrow and say, ‘Hey, this is a great apartment complex.’ These are specialty buildings built for special things, and they should be appraised a little bit differently.”

The city’s contracted assessor disagreed with American House’s opinion that it be taxed as an apartment complex and recommended the city contract with an assessor with more expertise in that particular area of assessment.

“What’s weird about this is that just now have they indicated that our approach to assessing them is incorrect,” Truman said. “Why now? Why is the issue coming up now and not in the past? What has changed?”

Regardless of why, the city doesn’t really have a choice in pursuing an expert assessor, officials indicated, because American House will have one representing its side if the issue is taken before the tax tribunal, and without matching expertise levels on the city’s side, the city stands to lose the full amount. Annually.

“As a city you’re always at a disadvantage in these situations because a lot of times the person who is fighting for them will take it on a percentage,” Truman said. “As a city, we’re paying almost everyone by the hour, so if there are enough of these that it takes up a lot of time, it costs us more.”

In this situation, though, the cost of not fighting back is a lot higher than not fighting at all.

“At some point, you just have to try and settle some of these that you would really like to fight, but this is an example of one that we really feel they were so far off that we have to fight it,” Truman said.

Representatives at American House did not return multiple contact attempts by press time.
 

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Sara Kandel at skandel@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1030.