Stein signs property tax freeze, easing Buncombe County affordability concerns

Buncombe County homeowners got a pause on the sharpest reappraisal hit, but the state’s new property tax moratorium does not erase the county’s budget pressure. Gov. Josh Stein signed Senate Bill 889 on June 19, and said, “The cost of living is too high.”

The law applies to counties that completed a reappraisal effective Jan. 1, 2026, which includes Buncombe County. For the 2026-27 fiscal year, covered counties must keep using the previous schedule of values, and they must keep using the 2026 schedule of values for 2027-28 and later years until the next general reappraisal. In practical terms, that delays the impact of the higher assessments that were set to flow into tax bills, but it does not stop county commissioners from adjusting the tax rate to protect revenue.

That distinction matters in Buncombe, where property value notices began going out in February after the county pushed its reappraisal back a year because of Tropical Storm Helene. County officials said the reassessment was about 70% complete when Helene hit, and the move to Jan. 1, 2026 replaced a 2025 schedule that had been postponed. The county assessor described the new values as roughly 50% to 70% higher than 2021 levels, while later reporting put the county’s tax base growth at 43% in the 2026 reappraisal.

Those numbers have sharpened the stakes for the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners as it works through the FY2027 budget. A county budget slide showed SB 889 could force a tax rate of 63.89 cents per $100 of assessed value, higher than the 55.02-cent rate already built into Buncombe County’s recommended FY26 budget, which included a 3.26-cent increase. For homeowners, the moratorium may slow down the jump in assessed-value-based bills. For county government, it can mean more pressure to raise the rate to keep services funded while recovery costs and other expenses keep climbing.

The General Assembly ratified SB 889 on June 10 after the House passed it 69-43 on third reading and the Senate passed it 35-8. North Carolina law already requires counties to reappraise real property at least every eight years, and counties with populations of 75,000 or more can be pushed into earlier reappraisals under sales-assessment-ratio rules. Asheville’s own FY27 budget discussion, which showed an $8.9 million gap, underscored how the property tax fight has become part of a wider affordability squeeze across Buncombe County and Western North Carolina.