MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County residents who live in mobile homes may get a shock in coming days as taxes will increase for many whose property values have been reassessed.

Thousands of taxpayers could be affected. Not all of the bills will increase, and some will decline. Those who feel the increase in value of a mobile home is incorrect have until April 1 to file an appeal.

Tax assessors inspected some 3,500 mobile homes, with most of those visits occurring in 2018, said Colquitt County Chief Tax Assessor Bobby Carroll. That leaves less than 1,000 mobile homes to inspect to complete reassessment of all in the county.

The new values are based on the National Automobile Dealers Association standards for mobile homes, and Carroll said using the guidelines improves consistency in assigning value to the homes. Those values will match those used in counties all over Georgia and the United States, he said.

“We’re going to a more uniform way,” Carroll said. “It’s called the NADA. It’s a national company that actually appraises manufactured homes all around the country.”

NADA also produces guidelines on assigning value to autos, boats and motorcycles.

For mobile homes, NADA values are determined by manufacturer, model, year and size, Carroll said. Size is based on whether the home is a single-wide, double-wide or triple-wide, and the number of bathrooms also is considered.

Assessors determine whether the home is in excellent, good, fair or poor condition, which factors into the assigned value.

In addition, assessors assign value to exterior features such as porches, carports, decks and skirting.

In some cases the assessor notes a feature that was added since the last assessment. In some cases the features had been there but had not been put on the books after previous assessments.

Carroll expects that a good number of residents whose taxes increase will not be happy.

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ve got to do my job, but I own property, too. I understand how they feel when they go up. I’m going to do the best I can to help.”

Those who believe the property value was set too high have several courses to appeal, but must begin with Carroll’s office.

The first stage is to make an appeal to the tax assessor’s office. Those who receive bills for mobile home taxes have until April 1 — the day payments are due — to file an appeal.

“For every appeal we go out there and look at it again,” Carroll said. “We inspect it again.”

Appeals must be made in writing, either by mail or email, and the taxpayer “can write it on a napkin” even, Carroll said. His office is in Room 135 of the Colquitt County Courthouse Annex, and is open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The phone number is (229) 616-7425.

If the initial assessment is upheld by Carroll, the taxpayer can appeal the decision to the Colquitt County Board of Equalization, made up of three county taxpayers. A mobile home owner who is not satisfied with the results there can appeal to Colquitt County Superior Court.

“It’s very important that they understand they have rights,” Carroll said. “I don’t want any taxpayers to feel they are stuck in a value. My goal is to make it uniform and make sure everybody is being charged the same way.”

In bills she has inspected, Colquitt County Tax Commissioner Cindy Harvin said, the overall trend seems to be up, although some are basically the same as last year and some will have lower tax bills in 2019.

In one case a taxpayer’s bill more than doubled, from $170 in 2018 to $383 — up by nearly $212 — said Harvin, whose office mails and collects taxes for the county. Another bill she saw was up by $118, and one that went from $35 to $50 is not a large dollar increase but represents a fairly large amount percentage-wise.

Harvin said she wanted to give taxpayers a heads-up before bills, which were mailed Wednesday from the company in Tennessee who prepares them, start arriving in their mail boxes.

From 2018 the fair market value assessment total of all affected mobile homes increased by $7.27 million, from $41.84 million to $49.11 million for 2019, she said. There were 4,189 mobile homes on the digest in 2018, compared to $4,214 for this year.

The amount of taxes paid for mobile homes will increase by a combined $84,595 to a total due in 2019 of $554,033.

“I looked at a customer yesterday with two mobile homes and one went up $62.06 and the other went up $141.82,” Harvin said. “This is a very big increase for one year to me, and I think it’s going to be a hardship on a lot of taxpayers. I want to encourage the taxpayers to please look at their bill and come in to talk to the assessor’s office when you get the bills if you have questions or don’t agree with the value.”

Mobile home owners who also own the land where it is located can file for homestead exemption by April 1, Harvin said, which can lower taxes on the property. Those people who have sold the home or moved it also should report that to the assessor’s office.