Summit County property owners whose homes were damaged during the severe storms on September 4 can now apply for a reduction in their property's appraised value, Summit County Fiscal Officer Kristen M. Scalise announced. The storms brought torrential rain, flash flooding, large hail, and damaging winds to parts of the county, and residents now have until December 31 to file the paperwork needed to see any tax relief.
The process runs through Ohio's long-standing damaged-property statute, Ohio Revised Code § 319.38, which lets county auditors and fiscal officers reduce a property's appraised value on the tax list once damage has been verified. As reported by Cleveland.com, Summit County property owners may qualify for a reduction in their property's appraised value after the storm, provided they document the damage and file the correct form. Because the storm struck in the third quarter of the year, state law caps the deduction at 50% of the documented damage amount, according to the Clinton County Auditor, which lays out how Ohio calculates these deductions by calendar quarter.
To put it in dollar terms: a property appraised at $100,000 with $10,000 in qualifying storm damage would receive a $5,000 reduction, dropping its appraised value to $95,000 for tax year 2026, per the same account from the fiscal office. That reduction applies to the property's appraised value, not a direct dollar-for-dollar cut to the tax bill itself — Ohio taxes real property at 35% of appraised market value, and House Bill 920 tax reduction factors already limit how much tax bills rise alongside valuation increases, according to the City of Green.
What Damage Actually Qualifies
Not every kind of storm damage counts. Per the fiscal office, damage to trees, landscaping, fencing, and personal belongings is excluded from residential storm-damage deductions — the relief applies strictly to structural damage to buildings, not yard debris or ruined possessions. Property owners must file Form DTE 26, the Application for Valuation Deduction for Destroyed or Damaged Property, to start the process.
Once an application is submitted, the Summit County Fiscal Office's appraisal department will inspect the property and determine whether the damage qualifies. Completed applications can be emailed to [email protected] or mailed to the Summit County Fiscal Office at 175 S. Main St., Room 304, in Akron. Residents who need a paper form mailed to them can call the fiscal office at 330-643-2704.
Why the Timing Matters for Homeowners
Ohio real estate taxes are billed a year in arrears, meaning any valuation reduction approved this year won't show up until property tax bills go out in January 2027. Under Ohio Department of Taxation rules, damage occurring in the first nine months of the calendar year must be reported by December 31 of that same year, which is why the county set its firm year-end deadline for the September 4 storms, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation.
The relief effort follows a meteorologically rough stretch for the region. The NOAA Storm Prediction Center had flagged a Level 2 Slight Risk severe weather outlook for central and eastern Ohio on September 4, warning of a 30% peak probability for damaging wind gusts across a corridor that included Akron and Summit County, per iAlert Weather. The storms that followed produced hail up to an inch in diameter, flash flood advisories, and winds strong enough to down large trees and power lines across multiple municipalities, according to HailTrace.
A Familiar Move for the Fiscal Office
This isn't the first time Scalise's office has opened this kind of relief window. The fiscal office activated the same DTE Form 26 process after severe late-summer storms in August 2024, offering homeowners the identical 50% third-quarter valuation reduction, according to a notice from Copley Township. A similar application window opened after severe weather in August 2023, per the City of Macedonia, suggesting the county has a fairly consistent playbook for responding to storm damage each year.
The timing carries extra weight for Summit County homeowners this year. The county recently completed its state-mandated 2026 sexennial reappraisal, assessing all roughly 262,000 parcels as of January 1 and mailing updated valuation notices starting July 20, according to Signal Akron. That reappraisal came with an average 18% property valuation increase across the county, a jump that drew hundreds of residents to public review meetings through August 27 to contest their new assessments, as reported by WKYC 3News. For homeowners already grappling with higher baseline valuations, a storm-damage deduction offers at least a partial offset before the new numbers show up on next year's bill.
