Ensuring Local Policy Complies with New Residential Inspections Law

The city manager of Tooltime, North Carolina, picks up the phone and calls Tim Taylor, the city’s minimum housing public officer and lead housing inspector. “Tim, I understand why you suspended all periodic inspections in Tooltime that did not comply with the new periodic inspections law.  I know we have much less flexibility now than we had before. But residential buildings still need to be inspected, and new complaints about neglected dwellings come in every week. I need a plan for moving forward that I can explain to the council. Can we modify our inspections program to comply with the law?”

Tim had already been working on it. Earlier that week, he and city attorney Heidi Keppert had reviewed and discussed a School of Government (SOG) bulletin on the new law. Although the law now requires inspectors first to find “reasonable cause” prior to inspecting a residential building, there was no other guidance on the procedural aspects of an inspection program. Heidi explained that the lack of guidance offers some flexibility to the city, but there are pitfalls as well. In the absence of clear procedures, inspections might be conducted inconsistently, or similarly-situated owners and landlords might be treated differently, leaving the city vulnerable to equal protection or due process complaints. A written inspections policy would help in that regard.

As Heidi and Tim work to revise their local policy, what aspects of the policy should they evaluate and modify? Read more »

Preoccupied with Occupancy Certificates: Part I

My current preoccupation (a temporary one, I hope) is certificates of occupancy. I don’t mean those permissions necessary to occupy public property in the Raleigh, New York, or Washington demonstrations that have been in the news. No, I mean those ordinary certificates of occupancy that local governments issue to allow new buildings to be occupied for the first time or the use of existing properties to be changed. The certificate of occupancy (CO) is a widely recognized certificate issued by code officials that represents a determination that work done on a building or development project has been completed in compliance with the law and may be occupied safely. Read more »

Locally-Collected Fines & Penalties: Calculating and Distributing Clear Proceeds

The Village of Paved Paradise is located on the North Carolina coast. It is a small municipality with a vibrant downtown. Because of its size and location, parking in the downtown area is scarce. There is a strict two-hour limit in the single town-owned parking lot, imposed by local ordinance. The ordinance assesses a $50 penalty for violating the parking time limit. (The ordinance is criminally enforceable under G.S. 14-4.) Despite the steep penalty, citizens and visitors regularly violate the parking ordinance—often parking in the lot for an entire day. The town employs a parking officer who issues multiple parking citations each day. However, the village has not been vigorous in its collection efforts, resulting in a measly 30% collection rate of the penalty amounts. In response to numerous citizen complaints about the lack of available parking, the village’s governing board decides to beef up its collection efforts in the hopes of discouraging violators. It hires DogtheBountyHunter, Inc., a local collection agency, to aid the village in collecting a variety of fees and charges, including the parking penalties. Pursuant to its agreement with the village, the collection agency retains 15% of the amounts collected, disbursing the remaining funds to the village.

Having read this recent Coates’ Canons blog post, the village board is aware that by operation of N.C. Const. Art. IX, Sect. 7 and G.S. 115C-437 some of the monies collected by the agency, including the “clear proceeds” of the parking penalties, must be distributed to the local school administrative unit(s) in the county in which the village is located. The board members need help in calculating the amount that must be disbursed to the public schools, though. Assume that the collection agency reports that for the preceding month it collected $600 in outstanding parking penalties. After retaining its 15% fee, the collection agency forwards $510 to the village. What amount must the village disburse to its local school administrative unit(s)?

(a)    $459

(b)   $510

(c)    $540

(d)   $600

(e)    None of the above Read more »

Interest on Delinquent Taxes

Just over a month remains before interest will begin accruing on unpaid property taxes levied for the 2011-12 fiscal year.  On January 6, 2012, these taxes will become delinquent and begin accruing interest at the rate of 2% for January and .75% per month thereafter until paid. 

The basic rules concerning interest are simple and easy to apply. But the details of the interest calculation can get tricky.  Collection fees, discovery bills and similar issues can quickly complicate the process.   This post offers my quick thoughts on some common questions concerning interest on delinquent taxes.  For more details, take a look at this bulletin. Read more »

Locally-Collected Penalties & Fines: What Monies Belong to the Public Schools?

Which of the following revenues belong to a county’s local school administrative unit(s)?

1.     A city imposes a $50 civil penalty on a citizen for violating the city’s noise ordinance. (The ordinance specifies that each violation is subject to a civil penalty of up to $50. The ordinance also is criminally enforceable under G.S. 14-4. That means that violation of the ordinance constitutes a Class 3 misdemeanor under state law.)

2.     A county imposes a statutory penalty of 10 percent of the amount of tax due by a property owner for the previous five years (for a total of $1500) when it discovers that the property was not properly listed with the county.

3.     Pursuant to local act authority, a town installs red-light cameras at various intersections and adopts an ordinance which imposes a $50 penalty on any car owner whose vehicle is caught on camera running a red light. (Running red lights also is illegal under state law.)

4.     A county imposes a $500 penalty on a citizen for violating its local air pollution control ordinance. The local program is authorized and designed to enforce state environmental laws.

5.     Citizens turn in several abandoned bicycles to a village’s police department. The police department follows the procedures of G.S. Ch. 15, Art. 2 to sell the abandoned bicycles at auction which generates $1200 in revenue. Read more »

Open Meetings and the Public’s Right to Speak

North Carolina’s open meetings law creates a broad public right of access to meetings of public bodies by requiring notice of most kinds of meetings, and allowing anyone to attend them. Do those who attend have a guaranteed right to speak at these meetings?  The answer is “no.”  The open meetings law itself does not create a right to be heard, only a right to attend. Other laws do, however, provide rights of public comment, subject to some limitations. This blog describes the extent to which the public has a right to be heard at local government meetings, and the limitations the unit is allowed to impose on those who wish to speak. Read more »

Making Changes to Prior Years’ Tax Values

“Don’t make retroactive changes to property tax values.”  As general rules go, that’s a pretty good one for county assessors to follow.   Absent unusual circumstances, any changes to property tax values should apply to the current tax year and not to prior tax years.  When a taxpayer appeals the value of his or her real property, that appeal should focus only on the tax value for the current tax year.  When an assessor increases the tax value of a parcel of real property due to improvements added to that parcel last year, the increase should affect only the tax value for the current tax year. 

Problem is, those unusual circumstances that could justify retroactive changes to property tax values seem to pop up pretty frequently. Unlisted improvements, inappropriate exemptions, and just plain old failures to appraise property can all lead to situations in which it might be appropriate to change tax values for prior years.   

At least three different Machinery Act provisions could possibly justify retroactive changes to tax values: the discovery provisions in GS 105-312, the provisions concerning the powers of the board of county commissioners in GS 105-325, and the “immaterial irregularity” provisions in GS 105-394.

Here’s a quick look at how these provisions should be applied. For more detailed analysis, please see this Property Tax Bulletin. Read more »