In the city’s mitigation FAQ page they answer the question of how the valuation of buy-out properties will be done saying that the province and federal governments will only go with post flood value.

” … the best it could get from the provincial and federal funding streams was the post flood value “

under the question: We were told that we would get the pre-flood value for our house, what happened?

A lot of those properties in North Ruckle have seen a drop into the four figure category. I mean that some properties that were worth 50 to 150 thousand dollars are now worth less than $10,000. That is pretty sad but not unexpected.

But not all of them have seen that same drop and some are still worth, on paper by BC assessment, over $50,000 or $100,000. Some of these property owners have actually spent money out of their own pocket, or the money that they got from the insurance companies (if they got any help from the insurance companies), to get their properties back in shape. Remember that doing this was one of the things suggested to them by the city and others when it was clear this process would take a couple of years.

My worry is that once this process gets rolling the assessments for those properties will also drop into the basement because all of the properties around them are essentially being devalued to Zero. The valuations that BC Assessments uses are what they calculate the values are as of Oct 31 the year before they issue your new year’s assessed value.

So if your property is still worth $100,000 in the year of 2019 and come 2020 you find that your property value has now plummeted – what is that going to do to your buy-out?

If you have to wait until 2020 before they negotiate a price on your buy-out what will your property value be then?

IF this is the case (and to be clear I am NOT saying this is the way it is – only asking a question) is there any way to either freeze the valuation used in the buyout to the 2019 value OR push the properties which still have a good value to earlier in the list to prevent the property owners from encountering yet more pain and suffering due to purely bureaucratic process?

The city is supposed to try and do the best they can on behalf of their tax paying residents . . . I think some resolution on this question is in order. If only to put the minds of those who have already lost so much and have no clear path into the future at rest.

UPDATED to point out that this is a question about how it works and not a statement about how it works.