RALEIGH — A Senate bill filed earlier this week would delay 2026 property revaluations in 12 North Carolina counties, including Pender County, pushing updated property values back one year and potentially changing how utility-related tax revenues are collected.
Senate Bill 889, introduced by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham, Guilford) and cosponsored by Sens. Brent Jackson (R-Pender, Sampson, Bladen, Duplin, and Jones) and Steve Jarvis (R-Davidson, Davie), would require counties that completed revaluations effective Jan. 1, 2026, to delay using updated assessments for one fiscal year. Instead, counties would rely on older property values when setting tax bills for the 2026–27 budget cycle, with the new values taking effect in 2027.
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“Residents across North Carolina are seeing their property values skyrocket after revaluations, and it’s imperative that the General Assembly take a thoughtful approach to address property tax concerns,” Berger said in a statement Tuesday.
Counties use revaluation numbers to set the property tax rate to calculate how much homeowners and businesses will pay in taxes, in order to determine how much revenue will be collected for the next budget cycle. Under North Carolina law, counties and municipalities must submit and adopt their annual budgets by June 30.
Counties affected by the proposed moratorium besides Pender are Anson, Bladen, Buncombe, Chowan, Clay, Davidson, Guilford, Harnett, Onslow, Pamlico, and Scotland counties.
Pender County commissioners asked April 24 for local lawmakers Jackson and Carson Smith to find a legislative remedy in recent weeks that will help the rural county legally suspend their 2026 revaluation. Commissioners voted to pause using the 2026 revaluation numbers after average home values in Pender County increased roughly 105% to 110%. Though some residents complained their property values escalated by 500%.
Without a delay, new values built into the county budget could potentially lead to higher tax bills for constituents already facing escalating prices on everything from groceries to fuel. Though the county commissioners set the tax rates, with property values doubling and tripling, even a revenue-neutral rate could tax people more.
Pender commissioners have been in budget talks all week, hammering out an approach, though no numbers have been put forth yet.
The board of commissioners expressed concerns about their 2026 revaluation’s assessment accuracy and taxpayer impacts, conducted by Vincent Valuations. They voted to use 2025 in consideration of their budget this year, despite state officials informing them it misaligned with the law. The North Carolina Department of Revenue advised the board the pause could also risk improper tax bills, given the lack of precedent for halting a revaluation mid-process.
In addition to allowing counties to use 2025 property value numbers, Senate Bill 889 would extend the window for property owners to appeal new values through the 2027 calendar year. Pender commissioners recently voted to extend their own appeals period, now lasting until October, in order to give the public more time to review assessments and file if they believe their property has been valued incorrectly.
“I talked with Carson,” Commissioner Jerry Groves said at an April 27 budget meeting. “He advised me, we could buy some time, but time wouldn’t change anything. If we pushed it to the eight-year limit, our values could be higher, and that’s about where we’re left it.”
Law requires counties do a revaluation every eight years, though some like Brunswick and New Hanover do it every four to keep properties in line more consistently with market rate. Waiting for the full eight years can lead to escalating sticker shock on property owners, as has happened in Pender County, one of the fastest growing in the state, which also has seen a boom of development during Covid-19.
A legislative fiscal analysis from the state’s Fiscal Research Division estimates delaying use of 2026 revaluations could temporarily reduce utility-related property tax revenues, such as from Duke Energy or Piedmont Natural Gas, as well.
North Carolina’s property tax system treats utility property differently from most other real estate countywide when it comes to revaluations. Most homes and other local property are revalued at most every eight years by law, while utility companies, such as electric, gas and railroad providers, are assessed by the state every year. A process known as equalization is used to keep utility property taxes aligned with local property values even though the two are updated on different schedules.
So if a utility company has $10 million in property in a county, but the county’s overall property values are assessed at 50% of current market value, only about half of that utility property — roughly $5 million — may be counted for local tax purposes.
Pausing the 2026 revaluation numbers would amount to roughly $10 million statewide in utility-related property tax revenue in the next fiscal year. In Pender County, the fiscal impact is estimated at a loss of $450,000, according to the analysis. Public service company property totaled roughly $141 million in taxable value for the 2025–26 fiscal year and generated about $1 million in annual property tax revenue for the county.
Jackson, who co-chairs the Senate Select Committee on Property Tax Revaluation, said during the Senate Finance Committee meeting Wednesday lawmakers need to take the time to carefully evaluate the impacts of any changes before moving forward with tax reforms.
“This is a complicated issue when it comes to the counties,” Jackson said. “We don’t want to unintentionally do harm when we’re trying to help.”
S.B 889 is in the Senate Rules and Operations Committee and will undergo further review in the coming weeks.
House Republicans have been advancing their own property tax proposals, including House Bill 1089, which would put a constitutional amendment on ballots for voters to take up in November. They would decide whether to impose limits on how much local governments can increase property tax revenue each year.
If approved, the measure would require lawmakers to set a cap on annual growth in property tax collections for counties and municipalities.
Speaker of the House Destin Hall (R-87) said the House is not opposed to the S.B 889, but noted he would prefer all of the tax reform ideas under consideration to be worked into a broader, unified package.
“All these ideas are percolating and bills moving dealing with property tax and I think we need to get a comprehensive solution,” Hall told the media on Wednesday.
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