New Castle County residents have started to see changes in tax bills after the property tax reassessment.
The county just wrapped up its first property reassessment in 40 years, prompted by a 2020 court-order in an education funding equity case.
The county vowed to make the reassessment process revenue neutral, adjusting the tax rate to reflect the new higher values.
New Castle County’s deputy director of strategic communications Kyle Grantham said this process was necessary to have property taxes reflect the current market.
“The goal is to, at the end of that rate adjustment, come up with the same number of actual receipts of revenue,” Grantham said. “So that way, we're not making extra money on this process. We're ending in the same spot.”
But that doesn’t mean individual tax bills will be unchanged. Some residents will see increases, others decreases and some will stay about the same.
And local school district tax rates are a separate issue.
Because of reassessment, districts can impose a tax rate increase of up to 10 percent. Several districts, including Christina and Appoquinimink, are taking the full 10 percent, increasing tax bills in those districts.
Grantham said one reason the county is addressing the changes people are seeing is because residential property values increased at a rate higher than commercial properties.
“If the county did nothing and just kept one rate for everything, well, that means that the tax burden would shift heavily into the residential space,” Grantham said. “So the county approached this by splitting the rate into a non-residential rate that's a bit higher and a residential rate that’s a bit lower.”
Grantham said he knows this is a complex process and invites constituents to bring questions to the county’s constituent services team.
“They've been really responsive,” Grantham said. “And again, [we’re] trying to make sure that we can explain this as thoroughly as possible to everybody who has a question or is affected by it. And as we get through, hopefully, the more we can educate people and the more we can help people understand why the bill looks a certain way.”
The deadline to file an appeal for the 2025 annual tax bill was March 31. Residents can file property assessment appeals in future years by filing before March 14 every year.
Delaware’s counties are also now required to do full assessments every 5 years.
