The Fountain Hills Unified School District (FHUSD) owes $1.9 million in cash after the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that Maricopa County overtaxed a group of property owners from 2015 through 2021.
Stemming from the 2016 Qasimyar v. Maricopa County lawsuit, property owners successfully argued that their properties should have been reassessed because the properties changed classification from an owner-occupied residential home to a rental or secondary home, or vice versa.
The Maricopa County Assessor’s Office didn’t consider that a change in use, since the properties were still residential, but a tax court sided with the property owners. An appeals court upheld that decision in 2021, and the county reassessed approximately 55,000 other homes that changed classification in 2022 and 2023.
