Huge jump in tax bill stings woman, 92

BOTHELL — Barbara Tredway got quite a shock when she started preparing her 92-year-old mom’s property taxes.

The assessor’s office upped the value of part of her mom’s land from $40,800 to a whopping $834,000 from one year to the next. That means Tredway’s mom, Bertha Blomberg, faces paying $6,532 more in property taxes this year.

Tredway, who handles her mom’s finances, said the extra taxes account for nearly half of her mom’s $15,000 annual income from retirement and social security.

“If I pay these taxes for her for three years, her savings will be gone,” said Tredway, who lives with her mom and takes care of her.

The assessor’s office says it had greatly undervalued Blomberg’s property for years until realizing the mistake in January 2007.

Situations like Blomberg’s happen infrequently, maybe once or twice each year, Snohomish County assessor Cindy Portmann said.

Blomberg does not owe any back taxes for previous years to make up for the long-running mistake in her property’s value, Portmann said.

The assessor’s office isn’t really sure why the property was so undervalued. The confusion may have stemmed from a senior exemption on another portion of Blomberg’s land, said Steve Lightle, the county’s residential appraisal manager.

“I would be speculating on how that happened at this point,” Lightle said. “I haven’t researched it.”

Blomberg, a retired school cafeteria manager, owns two lots side by side on the 23400 block of 15th Avenue SE. A one-acre lot contains her longtime home. Another 1.39-acre lot is undeveloped and covered with grass, brush and trees.

The assessed valuation of the lot with her home has climbed steadily, but there was no increase on the undeveloped lot.

The assessor’s office realized the mistake last year. By then, buildable land near Bothell was worth $600,000 an acre, Lightle said. A nearby .26-acre property with one home is valued at $552,200, and a .44-acre parcel with a home is valued at $454,600, according to county assessment data.

State law requires property to be appraised at market value, Lightle said. There is no limit to how much a piece of land’s value can change from one year to the next, he said.

A report released in 2006 by the state Office of Program Research listed the Snohomish County Assessor’s Office as among the most accurate in the state for assessing property values.

Although the land’s value was corrected in early 2007, Tredway assumed the value would be the same as it had been in recent years. The lot had been valued at $40,800 since 2003.

She just recently realized the value was changed as she prepared to send in her mother’s property tax bill. There is no way for her to appeal the change in the land value because the 60-day appeal period would have ended in spring 2007.

“I should have been paying more attention to this stuff, but it has always been the same,” Tredway said.

Because Blomberg’s house is on her smaller lot, she could sell her larger lot without losing her home, Portmann said. Sometimes, land buyers offer life estates to elderly sellers, allowing them to continue living on their properties for the remainder of their lifetimes or until they move.

“In this case, it looks like the person can still keep their home, so that may be something they need to consider,” Portmann said.

But Blomberg doesn’t want to sell.

The lot makes up a large portion of the yard around her home. She enjoys sitting outside in her wheelchair, where she can watch her chicken coop and her daughter’s horse, Doug, which frequently grazes in a fenced-in patch of grass. Her husband, who died of cancer in 2001, also built a tool shed, a woodshed and a garage on the edge of her larger parcel.

In the past, when developers have sent letters inquiring about buying the land, Blomberg has told her daughter to toss the notes in the fireplace.

Tredway is looking for a way to keep the land as open space and to preserve her mother’s memories, she said.

“I’d hate to sell it,” Tredway said. “She’s had it so long, and she’s 92.”

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.