PENDER COUNTY — Questions loom over whether Pender County followed North Carolina law when commissioners voted to suspend the county’s 2026 property revaluation earlier this week. An emergency meeting is being held Monday and one commissioner has invited state officials to speak on any legal misalignment.
According to Christopher McLaughlin, a faculty member at the UNC School of Government who specializes in property tax law, counties generally cannot pause or reverse a property revaluation after Jan. 1 of the revaluation year, as that’s when new values go into effect, per the North Carolina Machinery Act. Because Pender County voted to suspend its revaluation months after the deadline, the commissioners’ action falls outside that purview.
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Pender County commissioners voted unanimously this week to suspend its 2026 revaluation and use 2025 numbers for its 2026-2027 budget, while also looking to have its reval audited. The move came after residents complained their property values doubled, tripled and even quadrupled since the last reval completed in 2019. Vincent Valuations, which did the assessment for $2.3 million, said the Covid-19 boom and seven years of development have added to the escalation of values.
Commissioner Brad George acknowledged in a social media post Thursday the North Carolina Department of Revenue and the UNC School of Government have been in contact with the county and “made a determination that some actions previously taken by Pender County commissioners may not align with North Carolina General Statutes.”
George did not specify which actions were in question, but said he requested a Department of Revenue representative join them April 13 and provide clarification directly.
NCDOR representatives have not responded to Port City Daily’s request for comment on whether Pender County was out of compliance, had the authority to suspend the revals and offered any formal guidance or issued a legal determination.
The Machinery Act requires counties to conduct property revaluations at least once every eight years to ensure assessed values reflect current market conditions. Under the law, counties must adopt a schedule of values — essentially the set of rules and pricing guidelines used to assess properties. Appraisers look at land, homes, commercial buildings, and other structures, as well as location, size, age, condition, and other factors, to determine a property value. Once the schedule becomes effective on Jan. 1 of the revaluation year, they’re the official figures used for government entities to set a tax rate for the fiscal budget year and to calculate property taxes.
Pender County commissioners voted Dec. 1, 2025 to officially certify Vincent Valuations’ schedule of values. They became legally effective Jan. 1, 2026.
According to McLaughlin, counties generally retain flexibility before the Jan. 1 deadline to adjust or delay a revaluation. Had the commissioners voted on a suspension Dec. 31, 2025, for instance, it may not have been a problem. But after that date, he said, the law limits property value changes to only individual appeals and corrections, but not a countywide suspension and reverting to old numbers.
State statutes do not specifically outline a process for suspending or reversing a revaluation after the effective date. However, past interpretations by the UNC School of Government have treated the gap in the law to mean counties do not have authority to undo a revaluation once it takes legal effect.
The board of commissioners will learn if they were within legal bounds on Monday at 6 p.m. in commissioner’s chambers in Burgaw to discuss the revaluation suspension and consider possible next steps.
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