REITs, Real estate Investment Trusts, are the companies that own thousands of single-family homes and rent them out to middle -lass families in Rutherford County. They may operate like an apartment building as a single-income producing economic unit, but our constitution permits them to be assessed as a private residence.
It saves them 60% on their property taxes!
The General Assembly passed a law requiring assessors to locate Airbnb properties (Read about it here) to ensure they are assessed as commercial property and at the same time another bill is passed making it impossible for an assessor to locate them without a court ordered subpoena.
Oh, and the bill also allows Zillow to sell homes, bypass realtors and not pay local transfer taxes and recording fees! The General Assembly is hurting local businesses and property owners by cutting off a local revenue source to county and state government at the same time.
I believe transparency is important. But information needs to flow both ways. We as elected officials have been elected to fix real problems, not ones manufactured by lobbyists. If you cant find a real issue to champion it is best to remain silent. You might think that we have a Constitution to protect us from Bad Laws, right? Well, the legislature passed a bill from lobbyists that will make it almost into challenge the constitutionality of a bad law by effectively trying it up forever through administrative “Red Tape”.
Reits.. Public Chapter 0297.
Zillow ..SB998.
Airbnb Subpoena law Public Chapter 0339.
Law to Changeling constitutionality of a bad law (Jack Daniels Law)..SB868
Things sometimes sound good on paper but are horrible in practice. Common sense isn’t common and good work ain’t cheap.
Everyone is entitled to make an error now and then. (I know that I have!) I do not think any legislator sets out to pass a law that will hurt their constituents. They were coming off of a challenging year of COVID and were facing a backlog of legislation and a short timeframe in which to get things done. These four got through the cracks. It’s what we do after our mistakes have been pointed out to us that people will judge us upon.
