Buncombe County assessors face conflict-of-interest questions amid reappraisal cycle

Buncombe County property owners are heading deeper into reappraisal season with a question that goes to the heart of trust in government: can assessment staff who also work as real estate agents judge taxable value without personal financial pressure?

The concern matters now because the county has already finalized 2026 values and said they are available online, while the tax rate has not yet been set. For homeowners in Asheville, Black Mountain, Swannanoa, Weaverville, and elsewhere in Buncombe, that means the number on the notice is not just an abstract appraisal. It is the starting point for a tax bill and, for some, a fight over whether the county got the value right.

Buncombe delayed its reappraisal after Tropical Storm Helene and reset the effective date to January 1, 2026. County officials said about 70 percent of the work had been completed before the delay, and the March 2025 reappraisal presentation said the storm affected more than 5,500 real estate parcels, triggering thousands of site visits, hundreds of business accounts, hundreds of mobile homes, and dozens of parks. The county said it added 6 full-time employees and 3 contract workers since 2021 and has held more than 80 outreach events and presentations since 2023.

The county says it appraises all real property at true market value and does so on a four-year schedule, even though North Carolina law requires at least one countywide reappraisal every eight years. Buncombe’s 2021 citizen reappraisal guide said the county has about 129,000 parcels of real property and uses mass appraisal to value them all at once. That scale is part of why residents pay close attention when anything appears to affect fairness in the process.

Property owners who think their notice is wrong can first pursue an informal appeal and then take the case to the Buncombe County Board of Equalization and Review, which hears disputes over appraised value, situs, taxability, discovery, present use value, and exemptions. If a case goes beyond the local board to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission, the taxpayer carries the burden of proof. That is one reason the appeal process feels high-stakes for owners already worried about steep jumps in value.

The stakes are sharpened by Buncombe’s own ethics language. The county’s conflict-of-interest policy covers actual, potential, and perceived conflicts, a standard that makes the assessor-real-estate-agent question especially sensitive even without any accusation of wrongdoing. Buncombe also hosted free property appeal clinics in April, and high attendance pushed the county to extend hours, a sign that the public is already uneasy. Memories of the 2021 cycle still linger, including a case in Asheville’s historically Black Shiloh neighborhood where one home’s taxable value rose 44 percent.