MARK WAITE / PVT A crowd packed the Bob Ruud Community Center during a day of hearings by the Nye County Board of Equalization Feb. 23. RELATED STORY Location, location, location Advertisement

A number of disgruntled property owners found out this year that when it comes to the Nye County Board of Equalization, what goes up doesn't always come down.

The board heard repeated complaints from many of the 73 owners that their property was overvalued amid the current downturn of the economy over four days of hearings recently at the Bob Ruud Community Center.

It didn't help when one of the first items of business was a blanket reduction of 15 percent in the value of improvements approved for 524 parcels in Mountain Falls. That came in addition to a 25 percent reduction in land values.

"Why did Mountain Falls have a 15 percent reduction on their taxes? I only live about a half-mile from there. I live in Artesia. Can you answer my question why they have preferential treatment? I live in a nice community just like Mountain Falls," said Jane Chung, a resident at 5231 E. Chasemoor St.

During a telephone interview Monday, Equalization Board Chairman Mike McNerny said the board was merely following the county assessor's office recommendations.

"So if I have the assessor's office informing me they do not have data to support the valuation, 'please reduce it by this amount,' I'm inclined to reduce it," McNerny said.

A few Mountain Falls property owners still went ahead with their protest hearings. In boilerplate language concerning Mountain Falls, assessor Julie Dudenski said, "We don't have sufficient information in this subdivision to support our values."

Dudenski referred questions about specifics of the Mountain Falls settlement to Nye County Assessor Sandy Musselman, who was unavailable for comment.

A blanket 15 percent reduction in values for properties in Mayfield Ranch Estates was also approved. Part of that subdivision was sold at a trustee deed sale last year.

Henry Smith, who has an owner-builder custom home on just over two acres, said, "I own properties in different counties than Nye County, and Nye County is the only one I'm aware of that hasn't reduced the taxable value on the land and I'm wondering, why is that? Why is Nye county not reducing its taxable value on the property?"

McNerny said he didn't have information on that. But he said later some counties approved countywide reductions.

Kent Thomas, who wasn't able to get a reduction in his property values on Bell Vista Avenue, was confused.

"I heard the chairman say assessed values aren't necessarily what you pay for your house or what the real value is, and then I hear the assessor say they reassessed Mountain Falls based on 109 recent sales in Mountain Falls," Thomas said.

McNerny urged Thomas to stick to the issue on his agenda item -- his property.

Realtor Gaylan Bryant was denied an appeal, despite presenting a market analysis. Bryant thought his 2,471-square-foot home with attached garage and concrete pool was worth $247,700 using comparable sales within the last 90 days.

"Information I got from one of the title companies -- this is just from Pahrump sales -- that 85 percent of all the homes sold in Pahrump were distressed home sales," he said. "So for anyone thinking you can't use distressed sales as a market value property, I say that's realistically the only thing you can use. I'm just trying to be realistic.

"The median home price has fallen from $300,000 to $175,000 in December 2008. That's the greater Las Vegas area but we are included in that."

When Bryant complained about a time lag in appraisals resulting in higher valuations than the current market, former Pahrump Town Board member Laurayne Murray, now a Board of Equalization member, turned the tables on him.

While admitting things have changed in the last six months, Murray said the board has to follow state law.

"If we turned around and assessed your property every six months in 2004-2006 when everything was skyrocketing, you would've paid a lot more taxes," Murray said.

Some appellants were successful in reducing their valuations, like David Kalan, who received a 10 percent reduction in taxable value from $121,474 to $109,326.

"I had one of my properties appraised and it's worth less than 50 percent of what it was appraised at a year and a hafl ago," Kalan said. "Everybody here is smart enough to watch the news and find where all these properties have gone down, and my question is, why don't my property taxes go down?" he asked.

Sally Clapp requested a 35 percent reduction on her 2009 tax assessment. She said in March 2008 their home appraisal came up 22 percent lower than in May 2006, down to $241,000.

"Our home is not sellable at $291,000, not that we want to sell it. We're just asking for a fair reduction in the assessment valuation to reflect the downward trend," Clapp said.

McNerny noted Clapp had her home appraised for a mortgage finance. But the board granted her reduction to $241,000, of which $43,231 is the land value.

Robert Holmes, another resident of Artesia, got a reduction in his land value to $64,000, although he told the board, "You're not going to be able to sell any lots down there for $64,000. In Phase 5 where we live, there's 140 lots. Only five of them sold since 2004."

Bernard Hoffman brought an appraiser and an attorney to appeal an appraisal of almost $11 million for 75 acres zoned commercial on Highway 160 north of Mesquite Avenue.

Appraiser Richard Smith used examples of property sales back in 2002-2003 of $20,000 per acre, not $146,000 per acre, which would bring the appraised value down to $1.5 million. Hoffman's representatives said there were no time adjustments for the values presented by the assessor's office.

"I did not request general commercial zoning at the Board of County Commissioners' meeting in June 2007 ... I requested my property remain open use, highway frontage, and my property not be zoned at all," Hoffman said.

Murray said open use, highway frontage isn't a zoning option any more.

Despite the haggling, McNerny said, "I'm very confident in saying that everybody who came before us got a very, very fair hearing. We took all the information into account and tried to work within what we could to try to get relief."

That wasn't how Thomas saw it.

"To me it was a kangaroo court," he said.