County commissioners declare real property officially damaged, affecting its valuation

​YORK – This past week, the York County Commissioners (sitting as the board of equalization) officially classifying four real properties as destroyed – which affects the properties’ valuations because the structures are no longer there.
If a real property is destroyed by fire, weather, etc., the owners need to fill out a Form 425 so the assessor’s office can bring it to the board and then amended the property’s value because the structure is either gone or substantially gone.
As explained by Commissioner Chairman Daniel Grotz, four property owners filed the forms as their properties were destroyed or substantially destroyed sometime between Jan. 1 and June 30.
“If this happens, they can file the report, the assessor reviews it and then puts a new value on the property,” Grotz said further.
York County Assessor Kurt Bulgrin said property owners “need to file the forms, they need to let us know, as it is a challenge for us to know otherwise if no one tells us. And in the future, I am going to be working to have better outreach with village clerks to find out about these types of situation as they know everything that happens in their towns. We don’t usually know about these situations unless the stories are reported and the forms are filed.”
The properties declared as destroyed, this week, were all due to fire, Grotz said.