Property Tax Insights
This is the data behind the appeals SVA files: parcel-level compilations from county assessor, board, and treasurer records, for commercial owners in Colorado and the states we cover. If your property is in Colorado, start with three pages (Should You Appeal, Colorado in Numbers, and the 2025 county-board results). If it is in Utah or another state we cover, start with the Utah and multi-state research below. Then use an Initial Consultation to apply any of it to your building.
Start here if your property is in Colorado
Three pages answer most of what a Colorado owner asks SVA first: whether the number on the notice is worth contesting, what the ratios and the calendar actually are, and how last year's petitions were decided. Read them in this order. If your property is in Utah or another state we cover, the Utah and multi-state research is further down, and the same Initial Consultation applies.
- 1 · DecideShould You Appeal Your Commercial Assessment?Benchmark against 19,939 properties, run the two-year math, and read the honest cases for not filing.
- 2 · Check the figuresColorado Commercial Property Tax, in NumbersClass-precise assessment ratios, the 2027 calendar, and statewide medians, every figure traced to a public source.
- 3 · See what happenedAppeal Success Rates by County: The 2025 ResultsEvery decided 2025 county-board petition in seven counties, and what actually predicted a win.
Then send SVA the property address, in Colorado or any state we cover, and we will apply them to your building in writing: the Initial Consultation.
Colorado
Real property: whether to file, what the numbers are, how last year's petitions were decided, and how to read a consultant's win rate.
Colorado Office Property Tax Appeals
Above-market leases against fee simple value, market rent net of free rent and improvement allowances, the lease-up deduction the state board accepted in August 2026, and county value per square foot for 6,419 office buildings.
Read the Office GuideColorado Industrial Property Tax Appeals
What the state board took off a vacant 546,000 square foot warehouse in 2026, above-market leases, clear height in older buildings, environmental compliance costs that are not value, and county value per square foot for 9,845 industrial buildings.
Read the Industrial GuideEnergize Denver Costs and Your 2027 Property Value
Targets, penalties of $0.15 to $0.35 per kBtu from late 2029, a lawsuit that does not pause enforcement, and the point that matters for 2027: a buyer on June 30, 2026 priced the retrofit into the offer, and the county’s model did not. How to bring the gap to the protest.
Read the AnalysisShould You Appeal Your Commercial Assessment?
Not every assessment deserves an appeal. Benchmark against 19,939 properties, run the two-year math, weigh the disclosure and raise risks with real numbers (the raise rate is one in a thousand), and know the honest cases for not filing.
Read the FrameworkColorado Commercial Property Tax, in Numbers
Ratios (class-precise, 2024 to 2026), the 2027 calendar, statewide medians by building size, and what actually happens when owners appeal: one reference page, every figure traced to a public source. Built to be cited.
Open the ReferenceAppeal Success Rates by County: The 2025 Results
Commercial success rates ran from 6% in Adams County to 44% in Larimer. Douglas owners whose cases were argued won 68%; waived hearings won nothing at the county level. Seven counties, every decided petition, one dataset, and one conclusion about what actually predicts a win.
Read the AnalysisOne Approach or Three: How Colorado Values Residential and Commercial Property
Residential property, apartments of any size included, is valued on sales alone; commercial property gets cost, sales and income. Where rent still enters an apartment value, why the Board of Assessment Appeals now calls a lease-up deduction integral for a building that was empty on January 1, and how the 30-day rule splits a hotel between the classes.
Read the AnalysisOffice to Apartments: When Does Colorado Tax the Building as Residential?
An office is assessed at 25% in 2026; apartments at 6.8% for local levies and 7.05% for schools. Downtown Denver is lending public money to convert towers, and no statute, manual passage or published decision says which January 1 the switch happens on. The manual used to classify a partially complete structure by its intended use when completed, and dropped that sentence. What an owner should have in the assessor’s file before the assessment date.
Read the AnalysisTwo Hangars, Two Tax Bills: Colorado’s Possessory-Interest Fork
Build a hangar on leased airport land in Jefferson County and the tax is capped at the value of your ground rent. Build the identical hangar one county over and you’re taxed on the full building. We compiled every possessory-interest parcel in eight Front Range counties (five run full value, two cap at NPV, one does both at once), and a March 2026 appellate decision says two lease clauses decide who’s right.
Read the AnalysisWhat a 95% Win Rate Actually Tells You
We pulled every commercial appeal resolved at the Colorado Board of Assessment Appeals for tax year 2023. The market settles 61%. The highest-volume advocates run 49 to 57%. The prettiest win rates in the data belong to the smallest books, because a win rate measures the intake filter, not the hearing room.
Read the AnalysisBusiness personal property
Declaration schedules, the real-versus-personal line, and the equipment-heavy property types where classification decides the bill.
Who Actually Pays Colorado’s Business Personal Property Tax
The policy debate is about the $58K exemption. The dollars are 442 self-reported schedules paying $150K+ each, a combined $282M across 11 counties, led by Weld at $78.4M. Confidential by statute, almost never re-read, and concentrated enough that the top 50 accounts carry 36% of the total.
Read the AnalysisWhat Data Centers Are Teaching Cold Storage
Data centers made the building-versus-equipment line one of the most litigated questions in property tax. Cold storage sits on the same line (refrigeration is 25% to 40% of a build) with a fraction of the attention. Colorado’s controlling case was decided in the taxpayer’s favor in 1998, on environmental controls, and no published decision has ever applied it to a refrigeration plant. The doctrine is waiting; the honest 2026 math says where the money actually is.
Read the AnalysisWhat Data Centers Pay in Property Tax, and Why the Biggest Markets Pay the Most
We pulled FY2025 assessor and treasurer records for 776 data center parcels across 12 states. California tops the bill per square foot on an ordinary rate; Texas and Colorado get there on rate alone; Arizona and Oregon tax capped values that barely move. Power still outranks tax, but the spread is 10× and widening.
Read the AnalysisWhat the Assessor Puts on a Megawatt
Most data centers list their backup generators in a public air permit. We matched 319 permits and filings to 2026 county values. Virginia assessors put $4.7 million on each megawatt of backup power, more than twice the western states, and in Santa Clara the equipment billed at these sites comes to 78% of the real estate.
Read the AnalysisUtah
Who wins in Salt Lake County, and where the 2026 roll landed by asset type. The Utah appeal deadline is September 15.
Who Actually Wins a Salt Lake County Property Tax Appeal
Salt Lake County publishes the outcome of every appeal in its parcel value histories, if you know how to read the line codes. Among decided appeals from 2021 to 2024: office won roughly 25%, multifamily 19%, industrial 10%. Office wins 2.5× as often as industrial, and the spread tracks the evidence, not the increase. What that means before September 15.
Read the AnalysisUtah's 2026 Values Landed: Hotels Up 12.7%, and Office Is Still Overassessed
Median changes by asset type across Utah's largest commercial properties: hospitality +12.7% (83% of hotels rose), industrial +2.4%, multifamily −3.2%, office −3.7%. Two-cycle divergence is wider still, and in a non-disclosure state, office and apartment assessments remain well ahead of a falling market. The appeal deadline is September 15.
Read the AnalysisAssessment industry
What it costs to run the offices that set the values, for assessors, budget staff, and anyone who benchmarks them.
Apply this research to your building
The same county records behind this research are what SVA uses on a client's property. Send SVA the property address, in Colorado or any other state we cover, and we will tell you in writing whether the number is worth contesting, and say so plainly if it is not.