We are David and Stephanie M. and we have resided in Peach County since 2009. We have enjoyed our time living in the county until it comes time to deal with the Peach County Tax Assessors office. Our troubles with the assessors office began when two ladies came barreling down our driveway, get out of their vehicle and proceeded to walk around our house and property as if they owned the place. When David asked them what they were doing they acted like they had every right to trespass upon perosnal property and began to give him a hard time when he asked them to leave and he called the sheriff's office and asked to file a report. We, like other Peach County taxpayers have dogs, and we like large guardian breeds like Mastiffs and Rottweilers. We do not want ours dogs hurt by someone nor do we want anyone to be hurt by our dogs. David went to the tax assessors office the next day to provide them with his contact information and asked that they call before coming to assess as that we can ensure the dogs are put up and everyone is safe. Again he was scoffed at and again was treated as if it their right as tax assessors to trespass on personal property. A few years later this happened again, only this time David was able to yell at them as they barreled down the driveway, again, and escorted them off the property and called the sheriff's office again. We filed a report and a gentleman came to speak with us about Georgia Code Title 48. Revenue and Taxation § 48-5-264.1. We had to point out to the gentleman that it states that taxpayers must have reasonable notice before a representative enters the property. Instead, they would rather sit across the street with a telephoto lens taking pictures of taxpayers and their property than adhere to the law and provide reasonable notification that they will be out to take pictures and inspect the property. This behavior began in 2016 after several neighbors noticed a man with a telephoto lens on the road in the neighborhood next to the property taking pictures for over twenty minutes. That was disturbing the say the least. They only thing we asked them to do was contact David when they were coming over, he was only asking them to adhere to the law. In retaliation we have been hit with a sharp and steady increase in our assessed value, and this treatment has continued to our new home. We have previously filed appeals; however, they were “lost”. The year that our paperwork was not lost, on the date of the Board of Equalization hearing, we were saying our final goodbyes to a family member. When we called the tax assessor’s office to ask what, if any further recourse we had, we were told that we would have to wait until the next year to file the appeal again. We later found out this was a lie, we could have appealed to the Superior Court, and we missed that opportunity as well.

This year a representative from the Tax Assessors office once again barreled down our driveway to the new house, to access raw property with no direct access. Once again, she acted as if she had the God given right to trespass on people’s property with no regard for property lines and without notification. This has got to stop. We can no longer allow unelected bureaucrats to break the law and treat any property located within the county as their own.

Our biggest problem with the Peach County Tax Assessors Office is their blatant disregard for the law and the taxpayer’s privacy. All we ask is for is the office to give us reasonable notice and for our assessed value to be lowered to a more reasonable value.