Uncertified appraisers raised many questions

Thank you Dr. Heraper, for your pertinent letter regarding full sales price disclosure. It's needed now, more than ever, in light of the current uncertified residential appraiser staff working in the assessor's office. There are approximately 4,000 improved parcels per year to be physically inspected. By Idaho state law, trainees may take photos and gather data, but not assign values. They need to be accompanied by a certified appraiser while training and inspecting, and the data must be checked and values assigned by a state certified appraiser.

There is one person in our assessor's office to do this. It would take one person 125 working days (six months), reviewing one property every 15 minutes, 32 a day, to review and assign value to approximately 4,000 improved properties. This is not being done, as it would be physically impossible, given the current staff.

For all of those 2,700 property owners who were so concerned about fair treatment and fair market value two years ago, it might be a good idea to check your entire file. Since no certified, experienced, seasoned appraiser has reviewed our files, maybe we all should check our property's vital statistics and data, to verify that what is recorded is correct. Asking for sales comps to verify property value might be a good idea, too!

JAY HARVEY

Sagle