Council rejects valuation criticism

Steve McNamara and Steve Tucker of Property InDepth said many of the just-released capital valuations from Auckland Council were well out  compared to sales in the city during October.

"The magnitude of inconsistencies in the latest Auckland property revaluation is becoming glaringly obvious," they said.

But Auckland Council chief financial officer Kevin Ramsay said there was no justification for that claim. He said it was misleading because council valuations are based on sales and data from before July.

Jan O’Donoghue, operations manager northern, for Quotable Value said: “There is no justification to suggest that 30% of all valuations are wrong. The sales statistics show that the Auckland market has continued to rise since the July 2014 valuations were published.  In some parts of Auckland prices have increased 5% in the past three months alone.”

She said the valuations set meet the requirements of acceptable accuracy with the majority of properties selling within 10% of the assessed rating valuation.

Ramsay said rating values were assessed on a number of assumptions set out on the Rating Valuations Act, one being that the property is freehold.

“To compare the sale of a leasehold property to a freehold CV is erroneous and misleading,” he said.