Lehighton Area School District plans to consider a policy that would have the taxing body challenging the assessment of properties that have recently sold when there is a wide disparity between the sale price and assessed value.

District Business Administrator Ed Rarick said Lehighton worked on the policy in conjunction with its law firm, Fox Rothschild LLP.

“For example, if you have a property that sold for $500,000, but is assessed at $60,000, that is under assessed based on the sales price,” Rarick said. “We would get a report every month and go through it, after which Fox Rothschild would enter the process and go for a reassessment to make it equitable to other neighboring households.”

Director Nathan Foeller said that should Lehighton adopt the practice, it would join other neighboring districts already using it, including Jim Thorpe.

“We purchased a previous home for $94,000 and sold it 12 years later for $195,000, but the property taxes stayed the same,” Foeller said.

Rarick said if the assessments were not questioned, the district could be losing out on a significant amount of revenue.

“If you miss out on $1,500 a year because a property never gets reassessed, that adds up over time,” he said. “The object isn’t to go after every home sale. It’s just not worth it. The district would have to assign a value number that they feel is worth it.”

The state Supreme Court recently split 3-3 on whether the practice of targeting certain properties for assessment appeals violated the constitution’s uniformity clause. They entered the fray after Wilson School District in Berks County adopted a policy to appeal recently sold properties that appeared to be under assessed by at least $150,000. After the Berkshire Hills apartment complex sold for $54 million, the school district appealed the $10.5 million assessment, which was then raised to $37 million. Owners of the apartment complex then challenged the district’s policy in court.

The state’s Commonwealth Court also ruled that the practice was legal.

State Sen. Dave Argall introduced legislation in 2021 to eliminate spot appeals of property assessments in Pennsylvania, but the bill never got out of committee.

“My legislation would remove a taxing jurisdiction’s ability to appeal the assessment of a property based solely on the sale of the property,” Argall said at the time. “Taxing authorities would only be able to appeal an assessment when the property has gone through a countywide reassessment, been divided into smaller parcels, or a change in the productive use of the property has occurred.”

Argall said school districts, in particular, had been “very aggressive” in the use of the practice. “Spot appeals can increase taxes on residential properties drastically,” he said. “Two local residents have had their taxes raised through this unfair practice by $8,000 and $6,000, respectively. Furthermore, property owners in certain school districts fear making any improvements to the exterior of their property due to aggressive spot appeals and higher property taxes.