Heron Lake Ii Apartments, Lp Et Al.v.Lowndes County Board Of Tax Assessors
Eight partnerships developed affordable-housing apartment complexes using federal and state low-income housing tax credits and land-use restrictions. The Lowndes County Board of Tax Assessors disputed how those credits should be valued when calculating ad valorem real-property taxes. The trial court held that the governing valuation provisions were unconstitutional and that the court lacked jurisdiction over part of the dispute. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed. It held that the trial court had subject-matter jurisdiction and that the statute’s rules for considering low-income housing tax credits did not violate Georgia’s taxation-uniformity provision. The 2017 amendments allowed credits to be considered in the sales-comparison approach when comparable sales involved transferred credits, and in the income approach only when the credits generated actual income to the title holder. Those limits did not create an unconstitutional subclass or arbitrary valuation scheme. The Court therefore upheld the statutory framework and reversed the trial court’s judgment.
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