Attorney Clay Turner made his second appearance in as many months last week, asking the Martin County Commissioners to approve a tax break for Blackacre, LLC at the board’s regularly scheduled meeting.
Turner represents Jeremy Collins, CEO of Black Acres and the person behind Providence Omnistructure. Black Acre purchased the former Williamston Middle School in 2022 for $120,000 from the Martin County Board of Education. The building had been assessed on a $4 million valuation in 2017 and that assessment was scheduled for reevaluation in 2025.
The county adjusted the assessment of the property in an informal valuation down to $2,000,000 in 2023, however, Turner was requesting the valuation be reduced to the $120,000 purchase price.
“I’d like to first respond just very briefly to citizen Miss McDonald, who made some allegations that Mr. Collins, who’s the principal of Black Acre, has engaged in some sort of deal. I can tell you that’s flatly untrue.
I was here last month in public asking for a common sense solution and basic fairness on an unreasonable tax bill,” said Turner. “I’m here again today to do the exact same thing.
“So I just wanted to note that for the record, our ask is pretty simple. We went over this a little bit last month. Our ask is that the appraisal value be adjusted to $120,000 starting in 2000. There is a question of whether 2000 and 2022 were timely filed.”
A readjustment of the valuation of the property would cost the county and the town of Williamston an estimated $30,000 each in tax revenue.
Turner claimed when the building was purchased, Black Acre, LLC didn’t receive a tax bill since it was sent to the school district and therefore Black Acre, LLC, failed to pay the taxes owed.
Martin County Tax Assessor Melissa Phillips explained the county is not required to send tax bills.
“I’m going to address the issue about the tax notices as well. In GS 105-348 page 1 it pretty much talks about all property owners that own real or personal property. If you own property you know you’ve got to pay taxes and that notice shall be there whether or not you receive an actual notice,” said Phillips. “We are not required by statute to actually send a tax bill out to taxpayers.
“We do that for a courtesy to notify them of their amount, but the statutes say whether or not you get a tax bill you still are responsible for paying your taxes,” she continued. “Also, in his deed, there was a mention that 2022 taxes would be subject to be paid, so he would be aware that he owed 2022 taxes in regard to that.”
Statute GS 105-238 states in a non reevaluation year the assessor cannot look at the sale price to justify a change in value. The county does that during a reevaluation year which in this case is 2025.
“That’s why we don’t look at that. And that’s also why the state auditor’s office was in our office due to citizen complaints of property values being changed to the sale of the property which had been done in prior years,” explained Phillips. “In regards to the appeal, every year, real estate appeals are to be done. They start in January with the informal appeal process to our office. Once the board of (Equalization and Review) comes into session, we are no longer authorized to change a value without their approval. Once they adjourn for the year, real estate appeals have ended.”
Phillips went on to explain the reason tax appeal deadlines need to be met.
“The reason for the deadlines is we have a budget to approve every year to know what kind of revenue the county has. So that’s the whole point of these deadlines,” she said. “So you’ve already allocated 2022 values, 2023 values for your budget based off of those property values at the time.”
The commissioners took no action on Turner’s second request for a revaluation and will place it on the May agenda.
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