In CCP Berks, LLC v. Berks Cnty. Bd. of Assessment et al., 562-64, 570, & 595 C.D. 2024 (Pa. Cmwlth Ct.  Apr. 1, 2025), in a 2-1 decision, Commonwealth Court effectively declared that a party initiating a real estate tax appeal is unable to withdraw the appeal unless all parties agree.  In 2020, property Owners appealed the value of their property to the county Board of Assessment Appeals for tax year 2021, which the Board denied.  The Owners then appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, where the local School District intervened.  Later, in July 2022, the Owners filed a Discontinuance of their appeal, which then encompassed tax years 2021 and 2022.  In response, the School District filed a Petition to Strike the Discontinuance, which the Court of Common Pleas denied.

On appeal to the Commonwealth Court, the School District argued that it was entitled, as an intervenor and party to the assessment appeals, to insist that those appeals proceed to a final determination of value by the Court of Common Pleas, regardless of the Owners’ desire to abandon the appeals they had initiated.  The Owners argued that the Court of Common Pleas had appropriately applied, in its discretion, Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 229(c), which requires any party filing a petition to strike a discontinuance to demonstrate “unreasonable inconvenience, vexation, harassment, expense, or prejudice,” which the School District had not done.

The Commonwealth Court agreed with the School District.  The Court stated that, under 53 Pa. C.S. § 8855, a taxing authority has “the right to appeal assessments within its jurisdictions and to participate in assessments initialed by others,” and that nothing requires an authority to file its own appeal to appeal a subsequent order.  Moreover, the Court stated that the School District had retained the same rights it had regarding subsequent years’ assessments as in in the initial appeal, under 53 Pa. C.S. § 8854(a)(5), which provides for automatic appeal of subsequent tax years in pending appeals.  Thus, the Court held that the School District, as an intervenor, retained an interest in the appeal that it was entitled to protect by opposing the discontinuance.

According to the Court, this holding was supported by three prior cases:  First, in In re Appeal of Gateway School District, 556 A.2d 924 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1989), the Commonwealth Court had upheld the right of a taxpayer to continue appeals in the Court of Common Pleas of two subsequent tax years after a school district withdrew its initial appeal, based on an earlier version of the automatic appeal provision relating only to taxpayer appeals.  Second, in In re Appeal of Penn Hills, 546 A.2d 50 (Pa. 1988), the Supreme Court — relying on a local board rule comparable to 53 Pa. C.S. § 8855, allowing intervention as a party in an appeal — had upheld the right of a taxpayer to continue an appeal and receive a reduction at the board after the school district initiating the appeal had withdrawn it.  Third, in In re Appeal of Maoying Yu, 121 A.3d 576 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2015), the Commonwealth Court had concluded that a school district was not required to have filed its own appeal to argue that a taxpayer’s appeal at the Court of Common Pleas should not be discontinued, after the school district had in intervened in the appeal at the board.

The Commonwealth Court disagreed with the argument, relied upon by the dissenting opinion, that the School District could not oppose the discontinuance on the basis of a statement in its pretrial memorandum that it agreed with the Board, because the School District has clearly indicated that it was challenging the value of the assessments, and because the local rules stated that the memorandum was not a pleading that precluded the School District from changing its position.

Based on the above, the Commonwealth Court remanded the matter to the Court of Common Pleas to strike the Discontinuance and to determine the assessed value of the property.

Although acknowledging that it did not need to reach the issue, the Commonwealth Court nevertheless continued to address the applicability of Rule 229(c), holding that, consistent with prior case law, the Court of Common Pleas was able to apply, in its discretion, Rule 229(c), or any other rule of civil procedure, even though they were not directly applicable to real estate tax appeals.  However, the Court found that, contrary to the lower court’s opinion, the School District had demonstrated prejudice because it had been “lulled into forgoing an appeal” by its reliance on the automatic appeal provision of 53 Pa. C.S. § 8854(a)(5), depriving it of its statutory rights to appeal. This case poses some difficult questions for property owners.   No local rule or the rule of civil procedure can now prevent an intervening tax district from continuing an appeal, regardless of the property owner’s wishes.  Given that real estate tax cases remain pending in court for multiple years, it is inevitable that any appeal will result in the addition of subsequent tax years by operation of law.  Consequently, before appealing an assessment, an owner must decide for the next 1-2 years (or more), not only whether the property’s market value is likely to increase, but whether annual changes to the county’s common level ratio are likely to increase the property’s assessed value.  If such increases occur, the owner may be caught in a trap, unable to terminate an appeal it began, and providing a taxing district the means to increase the property’s value even though it had failed to take its own appeal.

Contact Adam Koelsch, Esquire at 717-237-5305, or Paul R. Morcom, Esquire at 717-237-5364 if you have any questions regarding this case or any assessment law issues.