King County is investigating an assessor’s office employee accused in a recent lawsuit of offering to help lower a property owner’s land valuations — which would translate to a lower tax bill — if the property owner hired the employee’s private side business.
In a civil complaint filed in March in King County Superior Court and since transferred to federal court, a property owner claims the employee, a commercial appraiser for the King County Department of Assessments, assigned unfairly high values to three parcels in SeaTac and Burien, then in 2021 offered to recommend lower values if the property owner hired the appraiser’s “tax advocacy” company. The lawsuit characterizes the proposal as a “request for a bribe.”
The lawsuit names the appraiser, his company and King County as defendants. The Seattle Times is not naming the appraiser as a King County investigation into the allegations is ongoing. In formal responses filed with the court on Monday, the appraiser and the county denied any liability or wrongdoing. The appraiser did not return requests for comment, but the assessor’s office said in a statement he “unequivocally denies” the allegations.
After The Times sought comment from the assessor’s office about the lawsuit in March, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office hired an investigator to review the allegations. The assessor’s office provided The Times with a written summary of the investigation’s early findings.
In that summary, the assessor’s office said that although the appraiser had formed a Colorado-based tax advocacy company, the review has “uncovered no evidence, other than the unsubstantiated allegations [in the lawsuit]” that he sought a kickback or bribe.
The appraiser continues to work in the assessor’s office, Chief Deputy Assessor Al Dams said.
County policy allows appraisers to take on a second job as long as they notify the department and do not do appraisal work inside King County. Those rules also apply to helping property owners file property tax appeals, Dams said.
The appraiser named in the lawsuit notified the county in January 2020 that he planned to “work/own a business” representing Colorado taxpayers appealing their property valuations, according to a copy of the notice obtained through a public disclosure request. “No appraisal work would be done rather just advocacy/representation on behalf of the taxpayer,” the notice said.
The company was registered in both Colorado and in Washington in 2020, according to state business records. The employee registered the company in Washington “because he was living and working in Washington,” the assessor’s office said in its statement. The company’s registration lapsed in Washington in 2022 and Colorado in 2023 due to failure to file required reports.
Of the assessor’s office’s 214 employees, most of whom work four days a week, 15 have filed notices informing the county of outside work, ranging from working as a real estate agent or landlord to delivering food on UberEats and playing music in a rock band, according to copies of the notices obtained through a public disclosure request. Some employees have filed more than one notice for different types of work. The appraiser named in the lawsuit was the only one to describe tax advocacy work.
King County assesses the value of commercial and residential properties each year. Those values are key to determining the tax bill for a given property. If a property owner believes the county is valuing their property too highly, they can appeal the valuation and present evidence to the county Board of Appeals and Equalization.
If either side is not satisfied with that board’s decision, they can then appeal again to the Washington Board of Tax Appeals. About a quarter of appeals result in a lower property valuation, according to the county.
King County property values shot up at unprecedented rates during the early years of the pandemic, frustrating some property owners with sticker shock on their tax bills. Values have since started to come back down in most areas as the real estate market has cooled.
The value of commercial properties can vary drastically based on the size and use of the property, buildings on the site, zoning, the ability to build on the property if it’s vacant and other factors. In the Burien and SeaTac area, total commercial land values increased about 31% from 2018 to 2021, according to county reports.
The lawsuit, filed by 3rd Ave SW LLC and Jha Family LLC, centers on the values the appraiser assigned to parcels in SeaTac and Burien. Siddharth Jha is affiliated with both LLCs, according to state business records, and is a “senior member of the Jha Family Office,” according to a statement from his attorney.
According to property records, the county valued Jha Family LLC’s vacant 8-acre SeaTac property that lacked a sewer connection at $266,000 in 2018. The county increased the value to about $1 million in 2019 and $2.7 million in 2020, a more than tenfold increase over two years.
The county pointed to a 2017 zoning change that allowed a greater number of homes to be built on the site, along with other factors, to explain the increased value. The property owner argued that a nearby property underwent the same zoning change but did not see an increase in value during the time period in which their property valuation shot up.
The lawsuit claims that during the appeals process in 2021, the county appraiser who determined the higher valuation told the property owner he had created a private tax advisory business and that if the owner wanted him to “recommend” a lower assessed value, the owner would need to “hire” the appraiser’s business.
The property owner refused and “told [the appraiser] that what he was asking for was a bribe, which is illegal,” according to the lawsuit. But the appraiser “was insistent and continued to tell Plaintiffs that they would not be bribing [him] directly.”
The lawsuit alleges the appraiser told the property owner “that there must be ‘something in it for him’ if he is going to ‘help’ Plaintiffs ‘reduce’ their assessed values.” The owner allegedly attempted to elevate the issue to the appraiser’s supervisor, who “refused to do anything about it.”
Jha Family LLC has repeatedly appealed the increases on the SeaTac property. It lost at the county level and is continuing to appeal to the state board. It has not paid property taxes on the parcel for the past three years, according to county records.
After three years of unpaid property taxes, the county can pursue foreclosure. The property is not yet in foreclosure and the county is not proceeding with foreclosure while the lawsuit is ongoing, according to the county’s Finance and Business Operations Division.
Jha Family LLC has also repeatedly appealed the county valuations of two adjacent vacant properties in Burien that it said lacked access needed to develop them. The county valued those properties at a combined $1.2 million in 2018 and $1.4 million in 2021.
The lawsuit alleges the appraiser told the property owner “that he would make ‘the same deal’” and “‘recommend’ a lower valuation” for the Burien properties if the property owner hired the appraiser’s company. The appraiser explained that the property owner could bring the company on in a “consulting arrangement” or could hire the company to appeal the valuation and the appraiser “would have another individual ‘appear’” for the property owner, according to the lawsuit.
The county said in a statement that the allegations lack specifics about how many conversations occurred, exactly when and where they took place and whether anyone witnessed the conversations. Plaintiffs allege they raised concerns about the appraiser’s conduct with his supervisor; the supervisor said she spoke to Siddharth Jha about his properties’ valuations but he did not raise those concerns, according to the county.
The county’s investigator reviewed emails between Jha and the assessor’s office, including an August 2021 email in which Jha “memorialized” a phone call he had with the appraiser’s supervisor, which “does not mention [the appraiser’s] alleged attempt to obtain a kickback” or Jha’s attempt to notify the supervisor about it, the county statement said.
“There is no evidence that Mr. Jha attempted to elevate his allegations to anyone else in the Assessor’s Office,” the county said.
The county contends the increased value on the SeaTac property was fair, despite the property’s limitations, because of comparable sales, the property’s zoning “and other factors reasonably relied on” for determining property values. The appraiser argued in appeals documents that his valuation accounted for the property’s challenges, including the lack of sewer access.
The appraiser’s supervisor and the director of the county’s commercial appraisal division have reviewed the valuations and agreed to them, according to the assessor’s office.
Jha said in a statement, “We recognize our obligation to pay property taxes as a means to contribute our fair share of tax obligations. But attendant to the government’s levy of property taxes is the government’s companion obligation to treat all taxpayers fairly regardless of who they are.”
Jha has filed civil litigation before, including a lawsuit in 2021 alleging that a former Redmond City Council member defamed him in her campaign two years earlier. A state appellate court ultimately found that a lower court should have dismissed that case, and ordered Jha to pay the defendant’s attorneys’ fees.