Chatham County provides easy access to tax records & bills

Pittsboro, NC - Chatham County residents, businesses and other customers will find it much easier to look up and print tax bills as well as to access other important tax information, thanks to a new online access system in the Tax Office that premiered on August 7.

To access the new system, go to: http://ustaxdata.com/nc/chatham/

Or you can also visit the county website at http://www.chathamnc.org and go to the Quick Links box at the top right of the homepage.

“We are so excited to offer this new access point for our customers because we know that the old tax inquiry system was frustrating for the general public to use,” said Chatham County Tax Collector Frances Wilson. “We believe that the new system will not only be easy for general the public to use, but it will also reduce staff time involved in helping people get information that they could not previously access themselves.”

Overall, the new online system will provide more information and make it easier to find that information, Wilson said. For example, when searching the real property database, users can search by: the primary property owner’s first or last name; the secondary owner’s first or last name; by street name only or full street address; the property owner’s account number (found on tax bills) or the parcel’s identification number.

Users also can select one of the townships of the county from a map on the opening page and search for properties within that area.
“Once the desired property is found,” Wilson said, “you can view that property’s tax record information. You can print that page or select from various menu options across the top of the page.”

These options include: information about buildings or other improvements on the property; information about the land and its value (including whether or not it is currently valued for farm use); a sketch of any buildings; a photo of any dwellings; a link to deed information; sale prices for other properties in the area; the tax bill for the property; and a link to the GIS (geographic information systems) mapping site to view a map of the property.

Surrounding sales and tax value information can benefit homeowners as well as realtors, Wilson pointed out. “A homeowner might be thinking about selling their house or may want to compare tax valuations of these properties to how the county valued his or her property.”

Taxpayers also can look up their entire tax bill, including motor vehicle and personal property taxes, by selecting the Tax Bill Search option in the upper-right corner of the opening page. The tax bill view provides an option to pay one or more bills by placing them in the “payment cart.”

Wilson said that there is a transaction fee charged for online payments, “so some people may not want to pay this fee and can cancel the transaction.”

“It’s important to note that when looking at the 2007 tax bills, real and personal property bills will likely be shown as unpaid because the 2007 bills are being mailed out next week,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that accessing the deed information requires a couple of steps. “When you have selected a property’s tax record and you then click on the linked deed number, you will first get the Register of Deeds disclaimer page. You will have to close that page and click on the deed link again to view the deed.”

The online access system selected by the Tax Office was the product of several months of researching various options. “We liked what Durham County had in place for a couple of reasons. It used the same basic underlying software that we already use, yet they had worked with a company to develop a customer–friendly access system for that software,” Wilson said.

“It was definitely a plus that we could see this in action and were confident that it would meet both our customers’ needs and our employees’ needs as well,” Wilson said.