Property Taxes for the Cove Common Areas and Slopes

We sent a Spring newsletter out on 4/22/08 with the May bills. It talked about the amount of property tax owed. Here are more details and information for those of you who would like to know what is being done.

The Board has discovered that the previous Management Company never paid any of our property taxes. Combine that with the change to the county line from half Salt Lake County to All Utah County in 2006, incorrect addresses on file and there has been an accrual of $11,917.13 including all taxes and penalties.

At the time of the handover in December 2005 to the HOA Alpine informed the new Board of this and documents were given. Alpine Homes had been paying the taxes before. The county line was changed and Managment Companies were changed and no one followed up. Community, our last Management Company is run by a CPA however among other improprieties this was not handled. Apparently, and unbeknownst to us, property tax is quite standard for common areas.

All possible measures have been researched to avoid this: Filing a non-profit 501c3 or c4 exemption status are not options since we are neither a benvolent charitable group nor do we operate for the public good, only our own private owners. So we are indeed liable for property tax.

Amy discovered the unpaid taxes after a small bill was forwarded to us by the first Management Company to Community who sent it to us long after we had fired them. This raised a red flag so we got to work. By going parcel by parcel through our plat maps Amy finally researched all the lots and Robin worked with the County Attorney and SunCrest to find out how to handle this.

Some of the land is being taxed at an improper rate, that is, assessed as residential use when it is a steep slope, and so forth. So we have to first appeal all parcels to the Utah Tax Assessor to be rated differently and correctly at a lower rate. We must present photographic evidence and plat maps to prove our case. We also need to ask if this can be retroactively adjusted for this error.

Once the tax basis is adjusted the appeal must then be made to the Utah Property Tax Attorney's office for a waiver of fees and penalties due to the breach of fiduciary by CPA who used to represent us, the previous Management Company and/or adjusted for change to tax basis.

Once they have rendered a decision the amount remaining will need to be either set up on a long term payment plan which can come out of general operating funds or it will be specially asessed to all the homeowners as a one time assessment at the discretion of the Board.

This Board is working to handle this matter promptly and will inform the owners a soon as resolution has been reached. It is our goal to have this handled by September 2008.