Wilmington Councilwoman Christian Willauer has filed a formal complaint alleging that New Castle County’s property reassessment treated some Wilmington neighborhoods inequitably compared with areas near Greenville. The complaint says homeowners in Hilltop, Tilton and West Center City are assessed above their homes’ sale prices, while properties in the Hoopes Reservoir and Barley Mill districts are assessed below theirs. Willauer is seeking a county reinspection.
News From The States reported that Willauer compared more than 400 sales from Tyler Technologies’ 2023 and 2024 assessment period across the five districts. In her analysis, 71% of Hilltop properties had assessed values exceeding 110% of their sale prices; more than 60% of properties in Tilton and West Center City were also above that threshold. The comparable shares were 23% in Hoopes Reservoir and 9% in Barley Mill. In those Greenville-area districts, 29% and 55% of properties, respectively, were assessed below 90% of their sale prices, compared with no more than 18% in any of the three Wilmington districts.
A West Center City Resident Feels the Squeeze
West Center City resident Alethea Smith-Tucker told News From The States that the assessments have strained her and her neighbors. The outlet reported that Willauer said residents’ concerns about tax bills tied to the reassessment prompted her to file the complaint.
Willauer’s complaint says one factor behind the alleged disparity was the use of comparable sales involving renovated homes resold by flippers to assess Hilltop properties. The complaint contrasts unrenovated Hilltop homes, with median sale prices ranging from $55,000 to $110,000, with renovated properties selling for $112,000 to $260,000. Hilltop’s median assessment is now above $180,000.
An Obscure 1919 Statute Forces the County's Hand
Willauer's complaint leans on a state statute that lets any tax-paying property owner allege that districts are assessed unfairly or inequitably compared to one another, which then directs the assessment authority to reinspect the affected properties. The law dates back to at least 1919. The century-old state statute provides that if a property owner files such a complaint, the assessment authority is legally obligated to personally visit the district and inspect properties to “equalize and make perfect the assessments.” Because New Castle County uses its Office of Finance assessment office rather than a board of assessment, that reinspection duty falls to county finance staff.
The complaint covers three Wilmington election districts and two Greenville-area districts, seeking corrections to the assessment inequalities identified in Willauer’s review. A New Castle County spokesperson told News From The States that the county would review the complaint with its law department to determine the applicable legal framework. Willauer said assessors could use property characteristics and permitting data to improve assessments, and estimated that fixes could be made by the end of the following week. If the complaint does not lead to a reassessment, she said she plans to explore further action with residents.
Where the Reassessment Went Wrong
The current property values stem from the state's first comprehensive reassessment in decades, a project that traces back to a 2020 Delaware Court of Chancery ruling in a lawsuit brought by Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and the NAACP, which found that multi-decade gaps between property valuations violated the state constitution's uniformity clause, as reported by Delaware Public Media. Before the update, New Castle County had not revalued properties since 1983, while Kent County last did so in 1987 and Sussex County in 1974, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. To close that gap, New Castle County contracted Tyler Technologies in June 2021 under a $14.35 million agreement, drawing from a $26.64 million county reassessment reserve fund, per county procurement records.
The scale of that undertaking was enormous: Tyler Technologies evaluated 214,788 parcels valued at $120.06 billion countywide, relying on 8,890 verified property sales from January 2021 through July 2024 to establish market values. But Tyler Technologies itself reported that results in several Wilmington communities did not meet industry standards, citing insufficient sample sales data for unimproved properties and an inability to inspect home interiors as key limitations. Those gaps raised tax burdens for many low-income residents even as the reassessment process itself completed statewide.
A Legal Tug-of-War Over Fixing It
The reassessment process has already produced at least one dramatic correction: Tyler Technologies initially assessed 801 N. Orange St., a luxury Wilmington apartment building with more than 200 units, at just $344,100, before the county corrected the figure to more than $60 million following public scrutiny, according to Willauer's council website. That episode fueled outrage among neighborhood residents who saw their own property taxes climb.
Correcting Willauer's complaint may not be simple, however. Assistant County Attorney William Martin has said that granting neighborhood-specific adjustments for Wilmington districts could face legal challenges under the Delaware Constitution's uniformity clause, which requires similar properties countywide to be evaluated using consistent methodologies, per News From The States' reporting. County officials have cautioned that spot-adjusting specific city neighborhoods could invite lawsuits from property owners elsewhere in the county. State law requires counties to roll back tax rates to remain revenue-neutral overall, but school districts may increase property tax revenues by up to 10% in the reassessment year.
The reassessment affected property values and tax bills in Wilmington. To guard against another multi-decade lag producing this kind of disparity, the Delaware General Assembly passed House Bill 62 in June 2023, requiring all three counties to conduct general reassessments at least once every five years going forward.
Appeals and tax bills offer wider context
Appeals and tax bills offer wider context. The countywide appeal count is separate from Willauer’s district-level complaint. Delaware Business Times reported approximately 5,000 countywide appeals. In an earlier analysis, Spotlight Delaware reported that Hilltop’s median tax bill nearly tripled, adding more than $800, while the Centreville area’s median bill dropped nearly $250. Those bill comparisons provide context on the reassessment’s effects, but are not a countywide assessment-quality measure. In a separate report on school-district revenue, Spotlight Delaware said three of New Castle County’s five school districts retained extra revenue raised through a unilateral tax increase associated with reassessment. That finding concerns school-district revenue decisions; it does not provide appeal outcomes for individual property owners.
