Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC ... - DocumentCloud
Andrew C Pelkey 9320 W Grandview Ct Franklin, WI 53132 November 13th, 2012 Mr. Mark Paulat Wisconsin Department of Revenue Bureau of Assessment Practices, M/S 6-97 P.O. Box 8971 Madison, WI 53708-8971 Dear Mark: I have many complaints about the assessor for the Village of Germantown, Accurate Appraisal, LLC. I own property (and therefore pay property taxes) in the Village of Germantown. I asked the Village of Germantown for a copy of our electronic assessment records so I could review them to make sure that we were in compliance with the electronic records requirement and that all assessment work was being done completely and correctly. As any taxpayer would, I expected to find a reasonable level of record keeping which means that I should be able to look at the records to determine if the tasks required to ensure uniformity and equity are in fact being done and done properly. To emphasize this point, you cannot uphold the public’s trust in your work if you keep no records. It is unreasonable for an assessor to expect the public will ‘just trust them’ without any records to substantiate their work. I question both the motive and competence of any assessor who intentionally avoids creating records that shows that they are performing their sworn duties completely and correctly. In reviewing the work done by the assessor for the Village of Germantown, I found: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Inadequate record keeping A complete disregard for uniformity and equity as required by state statute Assessment practices that were substantially below what is prescribed in the WPAM Little or no effort to collect and therefore use the best available information as required by the WPAM and the assessor’s affidavit An assessor who refused to provide information when asked An assessor who refused to answer questions An assessor who refused to provide evidence to substantiate his claims An assessor who violated the public’s trust, state statutes and their sworn affidavit
In this letter I will outline how these failures in the Village of Germantown were deliberate and part of Accurate Appraisal’s business practices and therefore business strategy. This would mean you should find the same results in each municipality they assess.
The following are my specific complaints about what I found.
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Complaint #1: My first complaint is one of misconduct and negligence. Accurate Appraisal as the Village assessor failed to either fulfill or reject as invalid my request to review the electronic assessment records without delay as required by Wisconsin’s open records law. On July 9th, I contacted Mr. Dave Schornack, the administrator of the Village of Germantown to request a copy of all electronic assessment records for the Village of Germantown. Mr. Schornack did not respond in a timely manner so I followed up again on July 18th. At that time, Mr. Schornack stated that he was not the custodian of those records and didn’t have a copy of the assessment records in electronic form. He then referred me to the village assessor, Accurate Appraisal. Per Mr. Schornack’s instructions, I sent an email to Jim Danielson of Accurate Appraisal on 7/18/2012 with the following request: Please send to me a copy of the entire Market Drive data folder for the Village of Germantown as of today 7/18/2012. You can remove any internal files not created or used by Market Drive but do leave those created or used by Market Drive there. As the Wisconsin Open Records law requires, I expected Mr. Danielson to comply or reject the request within 10 days. While the open records law does not state a deadline in days it does say it must be done without delay which the Department of Justice has generally upheld to be 10 days. It is important to note that: 1. My request to Accurate Appraisal was the second request to the Village and occurred 9 days after the first. It is therefore important to the Village that Accurate Appraisal either fulfill or deny the request without further delay. 2. The electronic records I am asking for (a copy of a folder that resides on Accurate Appraisal’s computer systems) are readily available and require no effort to ‘locate’ them. 3. While I agreed to re-send the request to Accurate Appraisal, I reminded Mr. Schornack that while a contract assessor may be a custodian of the records I am asking for, the Village of Germantown is the authority who is ultimately responsible for providing them to me. At this point, the village attorney, Brian Sadjak replied: I'm not going to get into a significant legal debate over this except to say that under § 19.21 every officer has the responsibility for its own records. The Assessor is an officer of the Village per statute. As such, your request to Mr. Danielson is appropriate as he is the custodian of assessment records. Mr. Danielson will reply to that request as provided for in Chapter 19. The important point here is that the Village Attorney directs Mr. Danielson of Accurate Appraisal to provide the information requested. Thus, there was no ambiguity of any kind on what was expected of Accurate Appraisal in terms of this request. Nine more days pass and I get no reply to my email to Jim Danielson. Due to Accurate Appraisal’s negligence, the Village of Germantown is clearly in violation of Wisconsin’s open records law.
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On July 27th, 2012, I sent a follow up email to Jim Danielson stating: I have still not received a copy of the entire Market Drive data folder for the Village of Germantown as of 7/18/2012. Please burn this data to a CD or DVD and mail it to me… On July 30th, 2012 I receive the following reply from Jim Danielson of Accurate Appraisal: I would be happy to comply with this request. There will be a charge for time and materials on this project. We charge $100/hour – with a minimum of $100 – in this case, we will charge a flat $100. Please remit payment to: Accurate Appraisal, LLC, PO Box 415, Menasha, WI 54952. Once the payment is received, I will get the data out to you right away. Complaint #2: My second complaint is one of misconduct. Accurate Appraisal violated the open record law by charging more to fulfill an open records request than the open record law allows. Wisconsin Open Records law only allows an authority to charge labor to locate the records requested. As noted earlier, the records I requested were a copy of an existing folder on Accurate Appraisal’s computer system which are readily available and require no time to locate. The open records law does not allow labor to be charged for the time required to duplicate the records nor does it allow for a minimum charge. In an email I received from Jim Danielson on 9/17/2012, he states that the actual cost of postage and materials was ‘around $5’. On 7/31/2012, I sent an email to Jim Danielson asking: Given that you are claiming this request will take 1 hour to fulfill (i.e. this is a simple request), please provide the reason why you, working on behalf of the Village of Germantown, were unable to fulfill this request within 10 days and are just now asking for $100 to create and send the CD. 10 days is considered a reasonable amount of time to fulfill a simple request. To which he replies: I had been in contact with the Village numerous times as to how we were going to proceed with this request. I apologize that it has taken this long, however I wanted to make sure we proceeded the way our client wanted us to proceed. As I stated in my previous email, I would be happy to fulfill your request. When I receive payment in full of $100, I will send you the data. Remember that the Village Attorney already directed Mr. Danielson to fulfill the request on 7/18/2012. There was no question as to what Accurate Appraisal was supposed to do. In addition, it is clear from this reply that the delay was intentional. The Village of Germantown should have either fulfilled or rejected the request, not debate it over an extended period of time. I have no evidence to corroborate Jim’s statement that the Village was the reason for the delay. When I asked him to confirm that the request had not been fulfilled because he was waiting for the Village, he did not answer. Therefore, I can only conclude he was not being truthful.
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After this point, there are many more email exchanges where Jim Danielson attempts to justify his minimum fee and avoid providing the data until the fee is paid. After some time he gives up on the idea of the minimum fee and in an email to me on 9/17/2012 states: I believe I have explained numerous times how I arrived at $100 – we can charge for time to locate the record, postage and materials. I believe the postage and materials were around $5 – 30 minutes of time at $200/hour = $105 – I even rounded down to $100. I don’t believe this to be any different than charging $200 to fix a corrupt database. As you can see, he now changes the charge to $200 per hour and states it takes 30 minutes to find the folder on his computer. The last sentence tells you what is really going on. He is referring to a charge he received from Assessment Technologies (whom I work for) to fix a corrupt database. This fee for programming services from Assessment Technologies has nothing to do with my open records request and is clear evidence of intentional misconduct. Note: it is now 60 days past my second request to Accurate Appraisal for a copy of the assessment records to review. I eventually get a copy of some data on 9/18/2012, although not what I requested. This is a clear example of my claim that the assessor was uncooperative with a taxpayer’s request to review the assessment records. Finally, I met with Mr. Danielson On November 8th, 2012 along with the Village president, administrator, clerk and attorney to discuss my open records request and the data not provided. At that time, Mr. Danielson stated that the reason he did not provide the data I requested is because he did not know where to find the data or how to copy it. This is another lie and inconsistent with his past statements. Mr. Lee DeGroot, principal at Accurate Appraisal, LLC is very tech savvy and he knows how to copy a folder from their computer to a USB drive or CD, even if Mr. Danielson does not. The idea that they do not know where they keep their Market Drive data for the Village of Germantown data is preposterous. Accurate Appraisal has a network of computers and stores the data I requested in a single folder on their network file server. The location of the data requested is something they explicitly configure when they set up the Village of Germantown in their Market Drive software. In addition, both Mr. Danielson and Mr. DeGroot are well aware that I am the principal developer of the Market Drive CAMA software they use to assess the Village of Germantown. If there was any confusion, they could have simply asked me. Complaint #3: My third complaint is one of misconduct. The data sent to me on 9/18/2012 was done at the direction of the Village of Germantown. The Village President, Dean Wolters instructed Accurate Appraisal, LLC to provide the data to me and send the invoice to the Village. This was to get around the impasse caused by Mr. Danielson’s insistence that he be paid more than the Open Records Law allowed. I received some data along with an invoice made out to me for $100, which I never agreed to pay in the first place and to which Mr. Danielson was not owed. Upon reviewing the electronic data I sent an email to Mr. Danielson with a list of questions. The response I received from Mr. Danielson was: Mr. Pelkey – As to date, I have not received payment on an outstanding invoice of $100 dated 9/10/12. As is customary procedure, we will not be processing this request until prior invoices have been paid in full. At that time, I will work on your current request. Thanks. Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Refusing to answer my questions for the reason given is inappropriate, given the background and facts already provided. Complaint #4: My fourth complaint is one of negligence and in one case may amount to fraud (in that it was done intentionally to hide that fact that work wasn’t done). Upon reviewing the electronic assessment records, I found that Accurate Appraisal: 1. Closed most building permits immediately upon entry (before the work was completed). This circumvented the mechanism which detects when a property value does not get updated as a result of an open building permit that should have affected its value. Not criminal for sure, but intentionally creating bogus records which negates checks and balances does not help ensure uniform values, is not helpful to the Village and is a questionable business practice. 2. Failed to close permits that were recorded by the prior assessor and left open. When an assessor takes over work from someone else, they need to pick up where the prior assessor left off. Building permit work is an ongoing effort and all assessors should expect to continue to track and update values based on open building permits when they become the assessor. This was not done. 3. Claimed to complete over 100 ‘to do’ items that needed to be done, but did not record that any of the items were completed. This means the next assessor has no way of knowing what was done and what was left undone. This means taxpayers have to pay the new assessor to discover and fix up the records which they already paid the prior assessor to do. 4. Failed to list all real estate sales that occurred at the end of 2009 when they (Accurate Appraisal) took over as the assessor. Listing and validating sales is an ongoing activity. All assessors taking over from a prior assessor will have sales to list and validate. This was not done. 5. Failed to record which sales were listed, validated and finalized and which were not. By not making a record of which sales are done and which are not, the next assessor has no way of knowing what has been done and what was left undone. This means taxpayers have to pay the new assessor to discover and fix up the records which they already paid the prior assessor to do. 6. Failed to record which properties have been fully inspected. The records show that only three properties were fully inspected in 2012, seven in 2011 and twelve in 2010. However, there were more than 350 valid sales during this same time period. There is no record that any of the properties sold were inspected at or near the time of sale. Mr. Danielson stated that Accurate Appraisal performed a full inspection on all sales but as a matter of practice they do not create records to show that. Not a good idea and may amount to fraud if all properties sold were not fully inspected as he stated.
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Making a proper record of when properties are fully inspected is important if and when the Village of Germantown decides that all properties should be inspected every X years. When such a policy is put in place, the Village will need to know the last time each property was fully inspected so they can focus their limited resources on those that need to be done sooner rather than later. 7. Failed to record when agricultural use land is inspected. There are properties that do not qualify for agricultural use land valuation which are still benefiting from it. Just like not recording sale inspections, Accurate Appraisal’s practice of not updating the records may be fraud if it turns out, as the evidence shows, that the required inspections were never done. The bottom line is that the creation of records relevant to the valuation process is necessary to give the public confidence that the tax burden is being distributed in a fair manner. A municipality that does not create such records creates an unreasonable burden for taxpayers who want assurances that assessment work is being done completely and correctly. A municipality that willfully avoids taking reasonable steps to ensure relevant facts are recorded which in turn ensures transparency and builds trust is at minimum negligent. Municipalities and taxpayers rely on and trust that a state certified assessor is performing all assessment work completely and correctly. They rely on and trust that their state certified assessor, as keepers of the assessment records, will take reasonable steps to ensure that all relevant facts are recorded. As a taxpayer, I rely on those records to confirm that assessment work in the Village of Germantown was done completely and correctly. Looking just at the assessment records provided to me, the work that Accurate Appraisal has done is woefully inadequate. As clearly stated in the sworn affidavit that Accurate Appraisal signed in each of the last three years, they must consider the best available information when valuing all properties. Stating they did so without making records really means the data wasn’t collected and therefore wasn’t considered. This means they violated their sworn affidavit. Complaint #5: My fifth complaint is one of incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records and inspecting the properties that benefited from the agricultural use valuation, I found that Accurate Appraisal continues to give substantial reductions in land values through agricultural use valuations of land that does not qualify for it. This is a violation of state statutes and the public’s trust to distribute the tax burden in a fair and equitable manner. Here is a list of properties that do not qualify for agricultural use valuation but are still benefiting from it: GNTV-044-983 GNTV-044-984 GNTV-044-985 GNTV-061-993 GNTV-281-982
GNTV-061-994 GNTV-084-995 GNTV-084-996 GNTV-093-997 GNTV-342-426
GNTV-173-999 GNTV-182-997 GNTV-183-991 GNTV-193-003
GNTV-193-005 GNTV-203-994 GNTV-224-992 GNTV-264-309
There is nothing in the assessment records that shows that anyone from Accurate Appraisal verified the agricultural use requirements of these properties each year. While Mr. Danielson may try to claim that the change in the agricultural use of these properties is a recent occurrence and therefore will be Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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reflected on the 2013 roll, I know that at least some of them are not recent. For example, Accurate Appraisal has given a large value reduction to GNTV-342-426, listing it as a “Christmas tree farm” and classifying it as 1st grade tillable. The site has nothing but small dead trees and hasn’t had a viable crop for years. The same owner has tried to abuse the system in other municipalities for which he owns land. If there is no record that these properties were reviewed annually and at least some of them are improperly valued as a result, clearly the properties were not inspected as required. By not inspecting these properties, Accurate Appraisal is not using the best available information to value each property as they swore they did in their affidavit. It also causes problems with the uniformity and equity of their values. Complaint #6: My sixth complaint is one of incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records and the Agricultural Use Conversion Worksheets submitted by Accurate Appraisal to Washington County for the agricultural use conversion fees in the years 2010, 2011, and 2012, I found that half of them are incorrect. The errors include: 1. Not reporting the correct number of acres converted (the amount reported was not consistent with the assessment records). 2. Not reporting all of the agricultural use conversions (see the prior complaint and additional cases below). The amount of acres converted is calculated automatically for them by the CAMA software they use. Clearly they didn’t even run the report which tells them when agricultural use land was converted. This is incompetence. The failure to report all conversions seems to stem from two things: 1. Accurate Appraisal improperly allowed conversions to take place without charge because a conversion charge was levied sometime in the past. The charge should be applied each time land is taken out of agricultural use. What Accurate did was illegal as it violates state statutes. 2. Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District purchased 28 acres of land which was then listed as a use of ‘exempt other’. If the land is no longer being used for agricultural purposes as the records show, then MMSD must pay the conversion charge but Accurate never reported it. The number of agricultural use conversions in the Village of Germantown in the last year was so small that there is no explanation, other than incompetence, why something so simple was done incorrectly so many times. Complaint #7: My seventh complaint is one of misconduct and incompetence. After reviewing the personal property assessment records, I have found that the estimated assessment ratio used to assess all personal property in 2011 and 2012 does not match the estimated ratio reported to the DOR (on the MAR) in the respective years. Furthermore, neither the estimated ratio used to assess personal property nor the estimated ratio reported to the DOR (which should be the same) appears to be consistent with the validated sales data in the assessment records. I asked Mr. Danielson if he would provide a copy of the ratio analysis from Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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which he developed his estimated ratio and he refused. In the interest of transparency and especially since it would appear the wrong ratio was used which directly affects the fairness of property taxes levied, it seems to me an appropriate request with an inappropriate response. Assuming Mr. Danielson actually did a ratio study to estimate the overall ratio (level of assessment) and he kept the study, then failing to provide a copy of it would be another open records violation. Complaint #8: My eighth complaint is one of gross incompetence. In some cases, Accurate Appraisal changed the assessed value of an individual property to match its last sale price, also known as chasing sales. This is wrong for so many reasons. Chapter 7 of the Wisconsin Property Assessment manual states: There are circumstances where the assessment process has resulted in non-uniform treatment of properties on the roll. The uniformity clause is violated where the assessor has significant differences between assessment to full value ratios of statutory classes (residential as compared to commercial or personal property, for example), or strata within a statutory class (on water vs. off water residential; newer vs. older homes). Changing the values of properties in certain neighborhoods while not adjusting the values in other neighborhoods, particularly when sales activity shows relative values are changing, fails the uniformity test. Singling out specific properties as a result of a sale of the subject, while not addressing all properties, would be another arbitrary method of assessment resulting in non-uniform assessments. An example of this is tax key number GNTV-331-229. It sold on 3/1/2012 for $327,500. It was assessed the year prior for $390,700. Accurate added a -23% adjustment listed as an ‘OB/MA’ adjustment and then added $900 as an ‘other value adjustment’ to get the assessed value to match the sale price exactly. Clearly this was intentional. Worse yet, there is no note (record) to support why the adjustment was made. This is completely unacceptable and indicates gross incompetence and should result in nothing less than a revocation of their state certification. Complaint #9: My ninth complaint is another of gross negligence and gross incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records I have found that Accurate Appraisal has consistently and intentionally granted significant market-based adjustments to individual taxpayers without adjusting other properties values affected by the same market conditions. Even though 2010, 2011 and 2012 were maintenance years, Accurate Appraisal: 1. Lowered approximately 180 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2012. 2. Lowered approximately 250 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2011. 3. Lowered approximately 150 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2010. Looking through the notes of various assessment records, it would appear that some of these value changes are incorrectly categorized. However, there are many examples of improper valuation Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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changes. For example, take property GNTV-353-106 which received a 17.5% reduction in value based on a bank appraisal done for refinance purposes. The property was valued at $726,600 in 2011. In 2012, it was adjusted down to $599,300. The note on this change states: 8/22/11 re-fi appraisal at $562K. Noted first floor at 2,720 SF & second floor at 2,100 SF (vs. record showing total of 4,267 SF). Ave. of six comps., all with substantially smaller SF, yields $590K. With est. $60/SF vs. $30/SF living area adj., appraisal would show est. $638,500 total. Appears more than fair valuation. Sending no change notice. This is so wrong.
First, 2012 was not a revaluation year, so adjusting a single property to match today’s market conditions without changing other properties affected by the same market conditions is just wrong (reduces uniformity).
Second, the appraiser notes a significant discrepancy in the SF area of the house as listed by the bank appraiser versus the assessment records, but no re-inspection was done to resolve that matter.
Third, when comparing the listed data on which the 2011 assessment was based with the listed data on which the reduced 2012 assessment was based, I found that the grade factor was lowered an ‘A’ to a ‘B+’ in order to reduce the property’s value. This would not be a problem except there was no full inspection of the property which would have been needed to make such a change. The last revaluation year was 2008 but that was only an exterior review.
Finally (and this is really baffling), there is nothing in the note above or in the rest of the assessment records to show that the assessor did their own sales comparison. They simply made an individual adjustment because a non-uniform bank appraisal that ‘appeared more than fair’ to the appraiser. By not doing their own sales comparison, Accurate Appraisal failed to consider the other comparable sales that the bank appraiser did not use. Assessors need to have a basis and justification for each adjustment they make when valuing a property using the sales comparison method. By using the bank appraiser’s work as their own, they accepted all of the adjustments made by that bank appraiser but have no basis or justification for those adjustments. If the adjustments made by one bank appraiser for ‘Property A’ are inconsistent with another bank appraiser’s adjustments for ‘Property B’ and Accurate uses both as their own, then the adjustments become arbitrary.
In all market adjustments made to all properties, there is nothing in any record that shows that any appraiser working for Accurate Appraisal performed their own sales comparison using the valuation models established during the last revaluation (2008) to check to see if the value the taxpayer was looking for would be uniform with all other similar properties. This is gross negligence.
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As if all this isn’t bad enough, Mr. Danielson, in front of the Village President, Village Administrator, Village Clerk and Village Attorney vehemently (and wrongly) claimed that it is both allowed and proper to do so. He stated that it is his responsibility to assess properties at their current market value! Of course his real responsibility is to assess all properties in a uniform and equitable manner. Making individual market-based adjustments to one property rather than all similar properties produces nonuniform values which results in an unfair distribution of the tax burden. Mr. Danielson’s admission that these adjustments were intentional means that this problem isn’t isolated to the Village of Germantown but is happening in many other municipalities assessed by Accurate Appraisal throughout the state. This isn’t a recent revelation either, it has been happening for a very long time. This practice is completely unacceptable, and indicates gross incompetence and a complete disregard for uniformity and equity that should result in nothing less than a revocation of the state certification of all assessors involved. The assessment practices used by Accurate Appraisal are illegal per Wisconsin state statutes, violate their sworn affidavit, violate the public’s trust, and deviate significantly and substantially from the practices outlined in the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual. Conclusion and Request Like all other taxpayers in the Village of Germantown and in Wisconsin, I expect that the assessed values used to distribute the tax burden will be uniform and equitable. I also expect my municipal assessor to keep adequate assessment records that will substantiate that the work required to produce uniform and equitable values was done completely and correctly. I expect that our municipal assessor will competently collect the best available information before assigning values to properties upon which taxes will be levied. In summary, it is quite clear from my findings that Accurate Appraisal, LLC through its willful actions: 1. Refused to provide information, disregarding Wisconsin’s Open Records law which was specifically designed to ensure transparency and the kind of review I attempted 2. Refused to answer questions about the work done 3. Refused to provide evidence to substantiate their claims 4. Kept inadequate records 5. Failed to collect the best available information before assigning values 6. Deviated significantly and substantially from the practices outlined in the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual 7. Gave substantial valuation discounts to some property owners with complete disregard for uniformity and equity 8. Violated the public’s right to a fair distribution of the tax burden through uniform and equitable values. 9. Violated their sworn affidavit Given that their results and their actions were not accidental, it is clear that Accurate Appraisal, LLC is unfit and unqualified to act as a municipal assessor. Clearly this is not the line of work they are best suited for. Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Mr. Danielson’s actions including his refusal to cooperate with this review and his intentional lies are serious ethical concerns. The evidence shows that he cannot be trusted to perform his sworn duties even if he swears he will. Their complete and willful disregard for uniformity and equity cannot be ignored. If Accurate Appraisal were to apply for a license to serve as a municipal assessor today, given their current business practices, they would not be given one. For the same reasons, I respectfully request that their license to perform assessments for tax purposes be revoked permanently. They have willfully violated the public’s trust and the Department of Revenue would be grossly negligent in its duties to allow it to continue for a moment longer. I have in my possession most of the electronic assessment records as of 9/14/2012 (I did not and have not received all of them). Should you need more evidence to substantiate any of my complaints, please contact me. Best Regards,
Andy Pelkey
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Andrew C Pelkey 9320 W Grandview Ct Franklin, WI 53132 January 31st, 2013 Mr. Mark Paulat Wisconsin Department of Revenue Bureau of Assessment Practices, M/S 6-97 PO Box 8971 Madison, WI 53708-8971 Dear Mark: I am writing you this letter with additional concerns about the assessor for the Village of Germantown, Accurate Appraisal, LLC. Since sending you my last letter dated November 13th, 2012 in which I detailed many serious problems about the real estate valuations of property located in the Village of Germantown, I have done a similar review of mobile home valuations for mobile homes subject to a monthly municipal permit fee (which I will simply refer to as mobile home assessments in the rest of this document). Once again I had trouble getting the records (more open records violations) and after two months of waiting and repeated requests I finally got what the Village states are all of the electronic records. The electronic records received were so sparse and outdated that I could only assume that the current and complete data was in paper form. As such, I sent the following email on January 15th, 2013 to the Village Administrator (Dave Schornack): I would like to come the Village an examine the master copy of all mobile home park assessment records that Accurate Appraisals has created and maintained for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Please let me know if you currently have these in your possession. If you do not, please let me know when they will be available. Also, please confirm what form (paper or electronic) that that master copy of these records are maintained in. If electronic, please tell me what software package is being used. Whatever form the records are maintained in is what I’d like to review. My goal is to determine if the records comply with the DOR’s electronic records requirement and to determine if the work being done complete and correct (as I did for our real estate and personal property records). I eventually received the following reply: With reference to your records request for the mobile home assessment data for the Village of Germantown, and specifically your request as it relates to electronic records, please be advised that the Village has discussed this request with our contract assessor. Based upon those conversations, we have determined that you have been provided all of the existing responsive records. As there are
no other records to provide, we consider this request closed. We cannot provide something that does not exist, and the open records law does not require the Village to create a record. It is important to note that the Village of Germantown has confirmed that the mobile home assessment records I was given represents all of the mobile home assessment records that exist (electronic or otherwise). The Village of Germantown mobile home assessment records I was given consisted of approximately 200 scanned images of paper copies of the ‘Application for a Mobile Home Permit’. This is the form that a mobile home owner fills out when they arrive at a park and each year in December thereafter to apply for a permit to live there. Most of the scanned forms were from 2009 when the prior assessor gave the Village of Germantown a copy of the Market Drive database used to assess all mobile homes. Accurate Appraisals printed out those forms on paper and then abandoned the electronic data. The rest of the scanned forms are handwritten and were submitted to the Village when new mobile homes moved in to a mobile home park. That’s all there is. The number of problems is too numerous to list but I will summarize the largest items below: 1. Inadequate record keeping. No record of building permits, sales or any fieldwork. No records of open book appointments, challenges to values or adjustments that were made. 2. Accurate Appraisals didn’t create any records at all. The records they do have were created by the prior assessor or hand written by a mobile home owner. 3. Accurate Appraisals failed to obtain an application annually from each mobile home owner as required. 4. Accurate Appraisal converted the Village records from an electronic form back to paper when they knew full well that the DOR required them to go the other direction. The WPAM states that each assessor has a responsibility to inform and assist their municipalities with the transition from paper to electronic records. 5. No record of how values were arrived at. There is no evidence that the values were produced by any rational method. 6. No evidence of uniformity or measures of such. 7. Mobile homes in parks are supposed to be assessed at 100% of market value each year. There is no evidence that this was done. This means the taxes were incorrectly calculated and therefore incorrectly levied. To say the work done is inadequate is an understatement. They are simply not doing the work they are being paid to do. This is clearly intentional as they have offered no excuse for doing so. Jim Danielson stated in an email to me: We do have the right to use whatever program we would like and we chose not to use market drive for the Germantown mobile homes.
That statement is both factual and dishonest at the same time. Yes they can choose whatever program they want, but in this case they are careful not to tell the Village that they aren’t using any program at all. Their complete and willful disregard for the most basic steps required to produce uniform and equitable values upon which taxes can be legally levied cannot be ignored. I respectfully repeat my request that their license to perform assessments for tax purposes be revoked permanently. I have in my possession mobile home assessment records provided to me by the Village. Should you need more evidence to substantiate my statements, please contact me. Best Regards,
Andy Pelkey
Inadequate record keeping A complete disregard for uniformity and equity as required by state statute Assessment practices that were substantially below what is prescribed in the WPAM Little or no effort to collect and therefore use the best available information as required by the WPAM and the assessor’s affidavit An assessor who refused to provide information when asked An assessor who refused to answer questions An assessor who refused to provide evidence to substantiate his claims An assessor who violated the public’s trust, state statutes and their sworn affidavit
In this letter I will outline how these failures in the Village of Germantown were deliberate and part of Accurate Appraisal’s business practices and therefore business strategy. This would mean you should find the same results in each municipality they assess.
The following are my specific complaints about what I found.
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Complaint #1: My first complaint is one of misconduct and negligence. Accurate Appraisal as the Village assessor failed to either fulfill or reject as invalid my request to review the electronic assessment records without delay as required by Wisconsin’s open records law. On July 9th, I contacted Mr. Dave Schornack, the administrator of the Village of Germantown to request a copy of all electronic assessment records for the Village of Germantown. Mr. Schornack did not respond in a timely manner so I followed up again on July 18th. At that time, Mr. Schornack stated that he was not the custodian of those records and didn’t have a copy of the assessment records in electronic form. He then referred me to the village assessor, Accurate Appraisal. Per Mr. Schornack’s instructions, I sent an email to Jim Danielson of Accurate Appraisal on 7/18/2012 with the following request: Please send to me a copy of the entire Market Drive data folder for the Village of Germantown as of today 7/18/2012. You can remove any internal files not created or used by Market Drive but do leave those created or used by Market Drive there. As the Wisconsin Open Records law requires, I expected Mr. Danielson to comply or reject the request within 10 days. While the open records law does not state a deadline in days it does say it must be done without delay which the Department of Justice has generally upheld to be 10 days. It is important to note that: 1. My request to Accurate Appraisal was the second request to the Village and occurred 9 days after the first. It is therefore important to the Village that Accurate Appraisal either fulfill or deny the request without further delay. 2. The electronic records I am asking for (a copy of a folder that resides on Accurate Appraisal’s computer systems) are readily available and require no effort to ‘locate’ them. 3. While I agreed to re-send the request to Accurate Appraisal, I reminded Mr. Schornack that while a contract assessor may be a custodian of the records I am asking for, the Village of Germantown is the authority who is ultimately responsible for providing them to me. At this point, the village attorney, Brian Sadjak replied: I'm not going to get into a significant legal debate over this except to say that under § 19.21 every officer has the responsibility for its own records. The Assessor is an officer of the Village per statute. As such, your request to Mr. Danielson is appropriate as he is the custodian of assessment records. Mr. Danielson will reply to that request as provided for in Chapter 19. The important point here is that the Village Attorney directs Mr. Danielson of Accurate Appraisal to provide the information requested. Thus, there was no ambiguity of any kind on what was expected of Accurate Appraisal in terms of this request. Nine more days pass and I get no reply to my email to Jim Danielson. Due to Accurate Appraisal’s negligence, the Village of Germantown is clearly in violation of Wisconsin’s open records law.
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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On July 27th, 2012, I sent a follow up email to Jim Danielson stating: I have still not received a copy of the entire Market Drive data folder for the Village of Germantown as of 7/18/2012. Please burn this data to a CD or DVD and mail it to me… On July 30th, 2012 I receive the following reply from Jim Danielson of Accurate Appraisal: I would be happy to comply with this request. There will be a charge for time and materials on this project. We charge $100/hour – with a minimum of $100 – in this case, we will charge a flat $100. Please remit payment to: Accurate Appraisal, LLC, PO Box 415, Menasha, WI 54952. Once the payment is received, I will get the data out to you right away. Complaint #2: My second complaint is one of misconduct. Accurate Appraisal violated the open record law by charging more to fulfill an open records request than the open record law allows. Wisconsin Open Records law only allows an authority to charge labor to locate the records requested. As noted earlier, the records I requested were a copy of an existing folder on Accurate Appraisal’s computer system which are readily available and require no time to locate. The open records law does not allow labor to be charged for the time required to duplicate the records nor does it allow for a minimum charge. In an email I received from Jim Danielson on 9/17/2012, he states that the actual cost of postage and materials was ‘around $5’. On 7/31/2012, I sent an email to Jim Danielson asking: Given that you are claiming this request will take 1 hour to fulfill (i.e. this is a simple request), please provide the reason why you, working on behalf of the Village of Germantown, were unable to fulfill this request within 10 days and are just now asking for $100 to create and send the CD. 10 days is considered a reasonable amount of time to fulfill a simple request. To which he replies: I had been in contact with the Village numerous times as to how we were going to proceed with this request. I apologize that it has taken this long, however I wanted to make sure we proceeded the way our client wanted us to proceed. As I stated in my previous email, I would be happy to fulfill your request. When I receive payment in full of $100, I will send you the data. Remember that the Village Attorney already directed Mr. Danielson to fulfill the request on 7/18/2012. There was no question as to what Accurate Appraisal was supposed to do. In addition, it is clear from this reply that the delay was intentional. The Village of Germantown should have either fulfilled or rejected the request, not debate it over an extended period of time. I have no evidence to corroborate Jim’s statement that the Village was the reason for the delay. When I asked him to confirm that the request had not been fulfilled because he was waiting for the Village, he did not answer. Therefore, I can only conclude he was not being truthful.
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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After this point, there are many more email exchanges where Jim Danielson attempts to justify his minimum fee and avoid providing the data until the fee is paid. After some time he gives up on the idea of the minimum fee and in an email to me on 9/17/2012 states: I believe I have explained numerous times how I arrived at $100 – we can charge for time to locate the record, postage and materials. I believe the postage and materials were around $5 – 30 minutes of time at $200/hour = $105 – I even rounded down to $100. I don’t believe this to be any different than charging $200 to fix a corrupt database. As you can see, he now changes the charge to $200 per hour and states it takes 30 minutes to find the folder on his computer. The last sentence tells you what is really going on. He is referring to a charge he received from Assessment Technologies (whom I work for) to fix a corrupt database. This fee for programming services from Assessment Technologies has nothing to do with my open records request and is clear evidence of intentional misconduct. Note: it is now 60 days past my second request to Accurate Appraisal for a copy of the assessment records to review. I eventually get a copy of some data on 9/18/2012, although not what I requested. This is a clear example of my claim that the assessor was uncooperative with a taxpayer’s request to review the assessment records. Finally, I met with Mr. Danielson On November 8th, 2012 along with the Village president, administrator, clerk and attorney to discuss my open records request and the data not provided. At that time, Mr. Danielson stated that the reason he did not provide the data I requested is because he did not know where to find the data or how to copy it. This is another lie and inconsistent with his past statements. Mr. Lee DeGroot, principal at Accurate Appraisal, LLC is very tech savvy and he knows how to copy a folder from their computer to a USB drive or CD, even if Mr. Danielson does not. The idea that they do not know where they keep their Market Drive data for the Village of Germantown data is preposterous. Accurate Appraisal has a network of computers and stores the data I requested in a single folder on their network file server. The location of the data requested is something they explicitly configure when they set up the Village of Germantown in their Market Drive software. In addition, both Mr. Danielson and Mr. DeGroot are well aware that I am the principal developer of the Market Drive CAMA software they use to assess the Village of Germantown. If there was any confusion, they could have simply asked me. Complaint #3: My third complaint is one of misconduct. The data sent to me on 9/18/2012 was done at the direction of the Village of Germantown. The Village President, Dean Wolters instructed Accurate Appraisal, LLC to provide the data to me and send the invoice to the Village. This was to get around the impasse caused by Mr. Danielson’s insistence that he be paid more than the Open Records Law allowed. I received some data along with an invoice made out to me for $100, which I never agreed to pay in the first place and to which Mr. Danielson was not owed. Upon reviewing the electronic data I sent an email to Mr. Danielson with a list of questions. The response I received from Mr. Danielson was: Mr. Pelkey – As to date, I have not received payment on an outstanding invoice of $100 dated 9/10/12. As is customary procedure, we will not be processing this request until prior invoices have been paid in full. At that time, I will work on your current request. Thanks. Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Refusing to answer my questions for the reason given is inappropriate, given the background and facts already provided. Complaint #4: My fourth complaint is one of negligence and in one case may amount to fraud (in that it was done intentionally to hide that fact that work wasn’t done). Upon reviewing the electronic assessment records, I found that Accurate Appraisal: 1. Closed most building permits immediately upon entry (before the work was completed). This circumvented the mechanism which detects when a property value does not get updated as a result of an open building permit that should have affected its value. Not criminal for sure, but intentionally creating bogus records which negates checks and balances does not help ensure uniform values, is not helpful to the Village and is a questionable business practice. 2. Failed to close permits that were recorded by the prior assessor and left open. When an assessor takes over work from someone else, they need to pick up where the prior assessor left off. Building permit work is an ongoing effort and all assessors should expect to continue to track and update values based on open building permits when they become the assessor. This was not done. 3. Claimed to complete over 100 ‘to do’ items that needed to be done, but did not record that any of the items were completed. This means the next assessor has no way of knowing what was done and what was left undone. This means taxpayers have to pay the new assessor to discover and fix up the records which they already paid the prior assessor to do. 4. Failed to list all real estate sales that occurred at the end of 2009 when they (Accurate Appraisal) took over as the assessor. Listing and validating sales is an ongoing activity. All assessors taking over from a prior assessor will have sales to list and validate. This was not done. 5. Failed to record which sales were listed, validated and finalized and which were not. By not making a record of which sales are done and which are not, the next assessor has no way of knowing what has been done and what was left undone. This means taxpayers have to pay the new assessor to discover and fix up the records which they already paid the prior assessor to do. 6. Failed to record which properties have been fully inspected. The records show that only three properties were fully inspected in 2012, seven in 2011 and twelve in 2010. However, there were more than 350 valid sales during this same time period. There is no record that any of the properties sold were inspected at or near the time of sale. Mr. Danielson stated that Accurate Appraisal performed a full inspection on all sales but as a matter of practice they do not create records to show that. Not a good idea and may amount to fraud if all properties sold were not fully inspected as he stated.
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Making a proper record of when properties are fully inspected is important if and when the Village of Germantown decides that all properties should be inspected every X years. When such a policy is put in place, the Village will need to know the last time each property was fully inspected so they can focus their limited resources on those that need to be done sooner rather than later. 7. Failed to record when agricultural use land is inspected. There are properties that do not qualify for agricultural use land valuation which are still benefiting from it. Just like not recording sale inspections, Accurate Appraisal’s practice of not updating the records may be fraud if it turns out, as the evidence shows, that the required inspections were never done. The bottom line is that the creation of records relevant to the valuation process is necessary to give the public confidence that the tax burden is being distributed in a fair manner. A municipality that does not create such records creates an unreasonable burden for taxpayers who want assurances that assessment work is being done completely and correctly. A municipality that willfully avoids taking reasonable steps to ensure relevant facts are recorded which in turn ensures transparency and builds trust is at minimum negligent. Municipalities and taxpayers rely on and trust that a state certified assessor is performing all assessment work completely and correctly. They rely on and trust that their state certified assessor, as keepers of the assessment records, will take reasonable steps to ensure that all relevant facts are recorded. As a taxpayer, I rely on those records to confirm that assessment work in the Village of Germantown was done completely and correctly. Looking just at the assessment records provided to me, the work that Accurate Appraisal has done is woefully inadequate. As clearly stated in the sworn affidavit that Accurate Appraisal signed in each of the last three years, they must consider the best available information when valuing all properties. Stating they did so without making records really means the data wasn’t collected and therefore wasn’t considered. This means they violated their sworn affidavit. Complaint #5: My fifth complaint is one of incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records and inspecting the properties that benefited from the agricultural use valuation, I found that Accurate Appraisal continues to give substantial reductions in land values through agricultural use valuations of land that does not qualify for it. This is a violation of state statutes and the public’s trust to distribute the tax burden in a fair and equitable manner. Here is a list of properties that do not qualify for agricultural use valuation but are still benefiting from it: GNTV-044-983 GNTV-044-984 GNTV-044-985 GNTV-061-993 GNTV-281-982
GNTV-061-994 GNTV-084-995 GNTV-084-996 GNTV-093-997 GNTV-342-426
GNTV-173-999 GNTV-182-997 GNTV-183-991 GNTV-193-003
GNTV-193-005 GNTV-203-994 GNTV-224-992 GNTV-264-309
There is nothing in the assessment records that shows that anyone from Accurate Appraisal verified the agricultural use requirements of these properties each year. While Mr. Danielson may try to claim that the change in the agricultural use of these properties is a recent occurrence and therefore will be Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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reflected on the 2013 roll, I know that at least some of them are not recent. For example, Accurate Appraisal has given a large value reduction to GNTV-342-426, listing it as a “Christmas tree farm” and classifying it as 1st grade tillable. The site has nothing but small dead trees and hasn’t had a viable crop for years. The same owner has tried to abuse the system in other municipalities for which he owns land. If there is no record that these properties were reviewed annually and at least some of them are improperly valued as a result, clearly the properties were not inspected as required. By not inspecting these properties, Accurate Appraisal is not using the best available information to value each property as they swore they did in their affidavit. It also causes problems with the uniformity and equity of their values. Complaint #6: My sixth complaint is one of incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records and the Agricultural Use Conversion Worksheets submitted by Accurate Appraisal to Washington County for the agricultural use conversion fees in the years 2010, 2011, and 2012, I found that half of them are incorrect. The errors include: 1. Not reporting the correct number of acres converted (the amount reported was not consistent with the assessment records). 2. Not reporting all of the agricultural use conversions (see the prior complaint and additional cases below). The amount of acres converted is calculated automatically for them by the CAMA software they use. Clearly they didn’t even run the report which tells them when agricultural use land was converted. This is incompetence. The failure to report all conversions seems to stem from two things: 1. Accurate Appraisal improperly allowed conversions to take place without charge because a conversion charge was levied sometime in the past. The charge should be applied each time land is taken out of agricultural use. What Accurate did was illegal as it violates state statutes. 2. Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District purchased 28 acres of land which was then listed as a use of ‘exempt other’. If the land is no longer being used for agricultural purposes as the records show, then MMSD must pay the conversion charge but Accurate never reported it. The number of agricultural use conversions in the Village of Germantown in the last year was so small that there is no explanation, other than incompetence, why something so simple was done incorrectly so many times. Complaint #7: My seventh complaint is one of misconduct and incompetence. After reviewing the personal property assessment records, I have found that the estimated assessment ratio used to assess all personal property in 2011 and 2012 does not match the estimated ratio reported to the DOR (on the MAR) in the respective years. Furthermore, neither the estimated ratio used to assess personal property nor the estimated ratio reported to the DOR (which should be the same) appears to be consistent with the validated sales data in the assessment records. I asked Mr. Danielson if he would provide a copy of the ratio analysis from Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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which he developed his estimated ratio and he refused. In the interest of transparency and especially since it would appear the wrong ratio was used which directly affects the fairness of property taxes levied, it seems to me an appropriate request with an inappropriate response. Assuming Mr. Danielson actually did a ratio study to estimate the overall ratio (level of assessment) and he kept the study, then failing to provide a copy of it would be another open records violation. Complaint #8: My eighth complaint is one of gross incompetence. In some cases, Accurate Appraisal changed the assessed value of an individual property to match its last sale price, also known as chasing sales. This is wrong for so many reasons. Chapter 7 of the Wisconsin Property Assessment manual states: There are circumstances where the assessment process has resulted in non-uniform treatment of properties on the roll. The uniformity clause is violated where the assessor has significant differences between assessment to full value ratios of statutory classes (residential as compared to commercial or personal property, for example), or strata within a statutory class (on water vs. off water residential; newer vs. older homes). Changing the values of properties in certain neighborhoods while not adjusting the values in other neighborhoods, particularly when sales activity shows relative values are changing, fails the uniformity test. Singling out specific properties as a result of a sale of the subject, while not addressing all properties, would be another arbitrary method of assessment resulting in non-uniform assessments. An example of this is tax key number GNTV-331-229. It sold on 3/1/2012 for $327,500. It was assessed the year prior for $390,700. Accurate added a -23% adjustment listed as an ‘OB/MA’ adjustment and then added $900 as an ‘other value adjustment’ to get the assessed value to match the sale price exactly. Clearly this was intentional. Worse yet, there is no note (record) to support why the adjustment was made. This is completely unacceptable and indicates gross incompetence and should result in nothing less than a revocation of their state certification. Complaint #9: My ninth complaint is another of gross negligence and gross incompetence. After reviewing the assessment records I have found that Accurate Appraisal has consistently and intentionally granted significant market-based adjustments to individual taxpayers without adjusting other properties values affected by the same market conditions. Even though 2010, 2011 and 2012 were maintenance years, Accurate Appraisal: 1. Lowered approximately 180 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2012. 2. Lowered approximately 250 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2011. 3. Lowered approximately 150 assessments, categorizing the change as a ‘general decrease due to revaluation’ in 2010. Looking through the notes of various assessment records, it would appear that some of these value changes are incorrectly categorized. However, there are many examples of improper valuation Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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changes. For example, take property GNTV-353-106 which received a 17.5% reduction in value based on a bank appraisal done for refinance purposes. The property was valued at $726,600 in 2011. In 2012, it was adjusted down to $599,300. The note on this change states: 8/22/11 re-fi appraisal at $562K. Noted first floor at 2,720 SF & second floor at 2,100 SF (vs. record showing total of 4,267 SF). Ave. of six comps., all with substantially smaller SF, yields $590K. With est. $60/SF vs. $30/SF living area adj., appraisal would show est. $638,500 total. Appears more than fair valuation. Sending no change notice. This is so wrong.
First, 2012 was not a revaluation year, so adjusting a single property to match today’s market conditions without changing other properties affected by the same market conditions is just wrong (reduces uniformity).
Second, the appraiser notes a significant discrepancy in the SF area of the house as listed by the bank appraiser versus the assessment records, but no re-inspection was done to resolve that matter.
Third, when comparing the listed data on which the 2011 assessment was based with the listed data on which the reduced 2012 assessment was based, I found that the grade factor was lowered an ‘A’ to a ‘B+’ in order to reduce the property’s value. This would not be a problem except there was no full inspection of the property which would have been needed to make such a change. The last revaluation year was 2008 but that was only an exterior review.
Finally (and this is really baffling), there is nothing in the note above or in the rest of the assessment records to show that the assessor did their own sales comparison. They simply made an individual adjustment because a non-uniform bank appraisal that ‘appeared more than fair’ to the appraiser. By not doing their own sales comparison, Accurate Appraisal failed to consider the other comparable sales that the bank appraiser did not use. Assessors need to have a basis and justification for each adjustment they make when valuing a property using the sales comparison method. By using the bank appraiser’s work as their own, they accepted all of the adjustments made by that bank appraiser but have no basis or justification for those adjustments. If the adjustments made by one bank appraiser for ‘Property A’ are inconsistent with another bank appraiser’s adjustments for ‘Property B’ and Accurate uses both as their own, then the adjustments become arbitrary.
In all market adjustments made to all properties, there is nothing in any record that shows that any appraiser working for Accurate Appraisal performed their own sales comparison using the valuation models established during the last revaluation (2008) to check to see if the value the taxpayer was looking for would be uniform with all other similar properties. This is gross negligence.
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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As if all this isn’t bad enough, Mr. Danielson, in front of the Village President, Village Administrator, Village Clerk and Village Attorney vehemently (and wrongly) claimed that it is both allowed and proper to do so. He stated that it is his responsibility to assess properties at their current market value! Of course his real responsibility is to assess all properties in a uniform and equitable manner. Making individual market-based adjustments to one property rather than all similar properties produces nonuniform values which results in an unfair distribution of the tax burden. Mr. Danielson’s admission that these adjustments were intentional means that this problem isn’t isolated to the Village of Germantown but is happening in many other municipalities assessed by Accurate Appraisal throughout the state. This isn’t a recent revelation either, it has been happening for a very long time. This practice is completely unacceptable, and indicates gross incompetence and a complete disregard for uniformity and equity that should result in nothing less than a revocation of the state certification of all assessors involved. The assessment practices used by Accurate Appraisal are illegal per Wisconsin state statutes, violate their sworn affidavit, violate the public’s trust, and deviate significantly and substantially from the practices outlined in the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual. Conclusion and Request Like all other taxpayers in the Village of Germantown and in Wisconsin, I expect that the assessed values used to distribute the tax burden will be uniform and equitable. I also expect my municipal assessor to keep adequate assessment records that will substantiate that the work required to produce uniform and equitable values was done completely and correctly. I expect that our municipal assessor will competently collect the best available information before assigning values to properties upon which taxes will be levied. In summary, it is quite clear from my findings that Accurate Appraisal, LLC through its willful actions: 1. Refused to provide information, disregarding Wisconsin’s Open Records law which was specifically designed to ensure transparency and the kind of review I attempted 2. Refused to answer questions about the work done 3. Refused to provide evidence to substantiate their claims 4. Kept inadequate records 5. Failed to collect the best available information before assigning values 6. Deviated significantly and substantially from the practices outlined in the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual 7. Gave substantial valuation discounts to some property owners with complete disregard for uniformity and equity 8. Violated the public’s right to a fair distribution of the tax burden through uniform and equitable values. 9. Violated their sworn affidavit Given that their results and their actions were not accidental, it is clear that Accurate Appraisal, LLC is unfit and unqualified to act as a municipal assessor. Clearly this is not the line of work they are best suited for. Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Mr. Danielson’s actions including his refusal to cooperate with this review and his intentional lies are serious ethical concerns. The evidence shows that he cannot be trusted to perform his sworn duties even if he swears he will. Their complete and willful disregard for uniformity and equity cannot be ignored. If Accurate Appraisal were to apply for a license to serve as a municipal assessor today, given their current business practices, they would not be given one. For the same reasons, I respectfully request that their license to perform assessments for tax purposes be revoked permanently. They have willfully violated the public’s trust and the Department of Revenue would be grossly negligent in its duties to allow it to continue for a moment longer. I have in my possession most of the electronic assessment records as of 9/14/2012 (I did not and have not received all of them). Should you need more evidence to substantiate any of my complaints, please contact me. Best Regards,
Andy Pelkey
Pelkey Complaint against Accurate Appraisals, LLC
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Andrew C Pelkey 9320 W Grandview Ct Franklin, WI 53132 January 31st, 2013 Mr. Mark Paulat Wisconsin Department of Revenue Bureau of Assessment Practices, M/S 6-97 PO Box 8971 Madison, WI 53708-8971 Dear Mark: I am writing you this letter with additional concerns about the assessor for the Village of Germantown, Accurate Appraisal, LLC. Since sending you my last letter dated November 13th, 2012 in which I detailed many serious problems about the real estate valuations of property located in the Village of Germantown, I have done a similar review of mobile home valuations for mobile homes subject to a monthly municipal permit fee (which I will simply refer to as mobile home assessments in the rest of this document). Once again I had trouble getting the records (more open records violations) and after two months of waiting and repeated requests I finally got what the Village states are all of the electronic records. The electronic records received were so sparse and outdated that I could only assume that the current and complete data was in paper form. As such, I sent the following email on January 15th, 2013 to the Village Administrator (Dave Schornack): I would like to come the Village an examine the master copy of all mobile home park assessment records that Accurate Appraisals has created and maintained for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. Please let me know if you currently have these in your possession. If you do not, please let me know when they will be available. Also, please confirm what form (paper or electronic) that that master copy of these records are maintained in. If electronic, please tell me what software package is being used. Whatever form the records are maintained in is what I’d like to review. My goal is to determine if the records comply with the DOR’s electronic records requirement and to determine if the work being done complete and correct (as I did for our real estate and personal property records). I eventually received the following reply: With reference to your records request for the mobile home assessment data for the Village of Germantown, and specifically your request as it relates to electronic records, please be advised that the Village has discussed this request with our contract assessor. Based upon those conversations, we have determined that you have been provided all of the existing responsive records. As there are
no other records to provide, we consider this request closed. We cannot provide something that does not exist, and the open records law does not require the Village to create a record. It is important to note that the Village of Germantown has confirmed that the mobile home assessment records I was given represents all of the mobile home assessment records that exist (electronic or otherwise). The Village of Germantown mobile home assessment records I was given consisted of approximately 200 scanned images of paper copies of the ‘Application for a Mobile Home Permit’. This is the form that a mobile home owner fills out when they arrive at a park and each year in December thereafter to apply for a permit to live there. Most of the scanned forms were from 2009 when the prior assessor gave the Village of Germantown a copy of the Market Drive database used to assess all mobile homes. Accurate Appraisals printed out those forms on paper and then abandoned the electronic data. The rest of the scanned forms are handwritten and were submitted to the Village when new mobile homes moved in to a mobile home park. That’s all there is. The number of problems is too numerous to list but I will summarize the largest items below: 1. Inadequate record keeping. No record of building permits, sales or any fieldwork. No records of open book appointments, challenges to values or adjustments that were made. 2. Accurate Appraisals didn’t create any records at all. The records they do have were created by the prior assessor or hand written by a mobile home owner. 3. Accurate Appraisals failed to obtain an application annually from each mobile home owner as required. 4. Accurate Appraisal converted the Village records from an electronic form back to paper when they knew full well that the DOR required them to go the other direction. The WPAM states that each assessor has a responsibility to inform and assist their municipalities with the transition from paper to electronic records. 5. No record of how values were arrived at. There is no evidence that the values were produced by any rational method. 6. No evidence of uniformity or measures of such. 7. Mobile homes in parks are supposed to be assessed at 100% of market value each year. There is no evidence that this was done. This means the taxes were incorrectly calculated and therefore incorrectly levied. To say the work done is inadequate is an understatement. They are simply not doing the work they are being paid to do. This is clearly intentional as they have offered no excuse for doing so. Jim Danielson stated in an email to me: We do have the right to use whatever program we would like and we chose not to use market drive for the Germantown mobile homes.
That statement is both factual and dishonest at the same time. Yes they can choose whatever program they want, but in this case they are careful not to tell the Village that they aren’t using any program at all. Their complete and willful disregard for the most basic steps required to produce uniform and equitable values upon which taxes can be legally levied cannot be ignored. I respectfully repeat my request that their license to perform assessments for tax purposes be revoked permanently. I have in my possession mobile home assessment records provided to me by the Village. Should you need more evidence to substantiate my statements, please contact me. Best Regards,
Andy Pelkey
