Randy and Debbie Blough are among the local volunteers helping owners of mobile homes get some relief from their properties being overtaxed, writes Michaelle Bond for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mobile homes are typically overtaxed because they are assessed as homes, which tend to normally gain value over time. Instead, mobile homes depreciate like vehicles.

Also, those properties cannot be reassessed on their own, as state law mandates that counties have to reassess all properties at once.

To circumvent this, the Bloughs and other volunteers have filed assessment appeals for around 20 mobile home owners in Chester County in 2018, lowering their taxes for 2019.

Last year, the United Way of Chester County teamed up with the volunteers, Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Chester County Paralegal Association to appeal 177 assessments. It was determined that the owners had paid on average four times what they should have owed.

This year, they plan to appeal the assessments on another 1,000 mobile homes.

“It’s the difference between survival or not,” said Stephanie Miller, senior director of community impact strategies at the UWCC.

In total, Chester County has more than 3,600 owner-occupied mobile homes.

Read more about the issue in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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