Stein signs law delaying Buncombe County property tax reappraisal impact
Higher Buncombe property values will be held out of next year’s tax bills, but commissioners now face a tighter budget fight while Helene recovery continues.
Buncombe County homeowners who got 2026 reappraisal notices this spring will not see those new values immediately turned into next year’s tax bills after Gov. Josh Stein signed a law delaying the impact. The change gives relief to property owners facing sharp assessment jumps, but it also leaves Buncombe County commissioners with a harder budget calculation as the county keeps rebuilding from Helene.
Stein signed Senate Bill 889 on June 19, and it is now Session Law 2026-8. The measure requires counties that completed reappraisals effective Jan. 1, 2026, to use their previous schedule of values for the 2026-27 fiscal year. The 2026 values will take effect beginning Jan. 1, 2027, pushing the tax impact back one year in Buncombe and eight other counties: Anson, Bladen, Davidson, Guilford, Harnett, Onslow, Pender and Scotland.
In Buncombe, the delay lands in the middle of a long, messy property-tax reset. The county’s previous reappraisal took effect Jan. 1, 2021. Commissioners first planned the next one for Jan. 1, 2025, then moved it to Jan. 1, 2026 after Tropical Storm Helene knocked the process off course. County officials said they were about 70% finished when Helene hit, and Buncombe still reappraises real property on a four-year cycle.
The new law does not erase the higher assessments already showing up in mailboxes. Buncombe began mailing 2026 reappraisal notices in February and March, and some property owners reported increases of 100% or more. Reported examples included an Asheville home in Grove Park/Town Mountain that rose from $970,100 to nearly $1.7 million, and a West Asheville home-and-salon property that climbed from $183,900 to $363,500.
Stein said in his signing statement that "the cost of living is too high" and framed the measure as tax relief for North Carolinians. For Buncombe, though, the central issue now shifts to the county budget. Reappraisal sets property values, not the tax rate, and commissioners still have to decide how much revenue they can collect without undermining schools, county services and recovery work.
That fight comes as Buncombe County continues to run appeal clinics and hold Board of Equalization and Review meetings for taxpayers challenging their new values. It also follows the commissioners’ adoption of a Helene Recovery Plan on Nov. 18, 2025, a five-year strategy built with the county’s six municipalities. The law buys time for storm-hit homeowners, but it also delays the larger question of how Buncombe pays for recovery while property values keep rising.
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