State Law requires the Assessor to value all taxable property at 100 percent of its true and fair market value. Klickitat County is now on an annual revaluation cycle. This means that all property is revalued every year. To accomplish the task of revaluing all 21,000 parcels in Klickitat County every year, we use a methodology called Mass Appraisal.

For statistical purposes, the county is broken into market neighborhoods, where properties are statistically updated based on sales in those neighborhoods. With Mass Appraisal, property values are trended up or down based on sales of property in their market neighborhood. This is very different than Fee Appraisals, where multiple sales are correlated to one individual subject property.

Properties must be valued as of January 1 of the assessment year. Sales from the prior year are used to determine assessed value. This means that your January 1, 2020 value is based on sales that took place between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019. The assessment rolls close on May 31 of each year, except for the valuation of new construction which can be added until August 31. Once the tax rolls close and the assessed values are certified the Assessor and staff have no authority to make changes to those values except under certain circumstances. Only the Board of Equalization, the State Board of Tax Appeals or the courts can direct the Assessor to change the assessed value after the rolls have closed.

If you disagree with the assessed value of your property, we encourage you to contact our office to review your valuation. In some cases, we may have incorrect characteristics that may change the value of your assessment. Many property owners can often settle disagreements at this level without having to continue the appeals process. However, it is very important for you to preserve your right to appeal by filing a Taxpayer's Petition within 30 days of receiving your Valuation notice, or July 1 of the assessment year.