Administrative review vs. the BOE vs. Circuit Court

Last reviewed 2026-08-02, against the county's 2026 appeal forms and the current Virginia Code. The 2027 forms and dates have not been published yet.

You have decided the county’s number is wrong. Now you have to pick a door.

Fairfax County gives you three, and they are not three versions of the same thing. One is a desk review by the county’s own appraisers. One is a hearing in front of an independent board, where you will be sworn in and will have about ten minutes. One is a lawsuit. They differ in how formal they are, what they cost, who decides, and how long you wait.

This page walks through what actually happens after you file each one.

In 30 seconds:

• Administrative review is free and informal. County appraisers re-examine your property and send you a written result.
• The BOE is free but formal. You are sworn in, you get about ten minutes, and an independent board of county residents decides.
• Circuit Court is litigation. There are filing fees, the county is a party, and a judge decides without a jury.
• You can skip straight to any of them. No route requires you to have tried another first.
• Two of the three can raise your assessment, not just lower it.
• A BOE decision is not the end. The county states it can be appealed further to the Circuit Court.
• These are Fairfax County routes. The City of Fairfax is a separate jurisdiction — check which one you are in.

Deadlines are on the deadlines page. The grounds you can argue, and who has to prove what, are on the main appeal guide.

Make sure this page is about your property

Every route and date here is Fairfax County’s. The City of Fairfax is a separate independent city with its own assessor, its own appeal forms and its own deadlines, which are not the county’s. Falls Church is separate again.

If your tax bill comes from the City of Fairfax, use the city’s own assessment appeals page. Your bill and your assessment notice name the jurisdiction that issued them.

The three routes side by side

	Administrative review (DTA)	Board of Equalization	Circuit Court
Who decides	The county’s own appraisal staff	An independent board of nine county residents, appointed by the Board of Supervisors	A judge, sitting without a jury
2026 deadline	April 1	June 1	Set by §58.1-3984(A) — never shorter than three years from the last day of the tax year
Cost to file	Free	Free	Clerk’s fees set by statute
How formal	A written submission and a review	A sworn hearing on a fixed schedule	An action at law, with the county as a party
Do you appear	No hearing; expect contact and probably a visit	Yes — or it is heard in absentia on your documents	Court proceedings
Your time at the hearing	—	About ten minutes to present, then five to reply	Court schedule
Can your value go up	Yes	Yes	Court decides
What comes next	You may still go to the BOE if the deadline has not passed	The county states a BOE decision may be appealed to the Circuit Court	Ordinary appellate routes

Two things that table cannot show. First, none of these is a step you must climb before the next — you can start at any of them. Second, the third column is a different kind of undertaking from the first two, not simply a more serious version of them.

Route 1: administrative review by the county

This is the county’s own second look at its own number. You send a written case to the Department of Tax Administration, at no cost, and its appraisal staff review it.

What happens after you file

You should expect to hear from someone. The county’s stated policy is that appraisal staff verify the property’s physical description when an appeal is initiated, which can mean an inspection.

You can decline. The review then goes ahead on the information the county already has — which is the information you are disputing.

The result arrives in writing, and it can go three ways: the original assessed value may be affirmed, increased, or decreased.

What this route is good at, and what it is not

It is the least ceremonial of the three. There is no hearing, no oath, and no deadline to schedule anything. Say your case is that the county’s record of your house is simply wrong: the square footage, the room count, a basement recorded as finished when it is bare concrete. On this route, the people reading your file are the people who maintain that record.

What it is not is independent. The office reviewing the number is the office that produced it. That is not a criticism; it is the thing to know when you decide where to spend your effort.

The county also suggests filing early if you intend to use this route. Doing so increases the likelihood of getting your results before the BOE filing deadline, which keeps the BOE available to you if the answer disappoints.

Route 2: the Board of Equalization

The BOE is not part of the county’s tax department. It is an independent body of nine members appointed by the Board of Supervisors — Fairfax County residents, a majority of them property owners.

What the hearing is actually like

It is a formal proceeding, and short. Witnesses are sworn in. Then the order of procedure runs:

1. You present your case, with testimony and your documents — 10 minutes.
2. The Department of Tax Administration presents its testimony and evidence — 10 minutes.
3. You reply to what DTA just said — 5 minutes.
4. The hearing closes. The board discusses it, and may ask either side questions to clarify something. No further evidence from anyone.
5. The board decides, and the decision is recorded.

Twenty-five minutes of speaking, in total. That is the single most useful thing to know before you write your case: whatever you cannot say in ten minutes has to be on the page you filed.

Three rules people run into

You cannot cross-examine DTA. The county cautions appellants not to address DTA staff directly but to present to the board. A board member may choose to put your question to DTA. You may not ask them yourself.

Nothing new arrives at the hearing. All written and supplementary information must be submitted with the application by the filing deadline. Written materials, visual presentations and other documentary evidence had to be filed and received by June 1 — maps and photographs excepted. The evidence rules on the main guide go through this in full.

Argue the total, not the parts. Uniformity is a pattern argument, not a two-house comparison. The Virginia Supreme Court has held that it must plainly appear the appraisal is out of line generally with appraisals of other neighborhood properties. Those properties have to bear some relation to yours in character and use. The Court of Appeals restated that rule in a 2024 Fairfax case. The county states that uniformity of the tax burden is a function of the total assessed value. Large increases in land value or improvement value are not errors in the assessment so long as the change in the total value is uniform as measured by market value evidence. So a presentation built around your land value doubling is a presentation about the wrong number.

You can make the county produce its records

The same kind of provision that applies in circuit court applies here, and it is worth knowing before you file.

In an appeal of residential property filed by an owner of property with fewer than four residential units, §58.1-3379(B) requires the assessing officer to give you the written notice under subsection E of §58.1-3331, and — on written request — to provide copies of the assessment records in subsections A, B and C of that section, so far as they pertain to how he determined the fair market value (what the property would sell for on the open market) of your property.

He must provide them within 15 days of the written request.

If he does not, the statute reorders the hearing. Before you present anything, the assessing officer must put into evidence his §58.1-3331 records, testimony explaining the methodologies he used, and testimony that the value was reached in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practices and applicable Virginia law. After he finishes, the burden returns to you by a preponderance — meaning you have to make it more likely than not.

The difference from the court version: there is no 45-day deadline here. At circuit court the request must be made no later than 45 days before trial. At the Board of Equalization (the independent county board that hears assessment appeals) the statute sets the 15-day production period without attaching a deadline to the request itself.

There is also a consequence written into §58.1-3331 itself. Under subsection F, if the assessing officer fails to disclose or make available information that section requires, and that failure is still standing within five days of action by the board — or by a court under §58.1-3984 — then the assessing official and the local government may not introduce that information, or use it in any other way, in the appeal.

What any of that means for a particular appeal depends on facts and timing this page does not have. Your right to see the county's own numbers sets out the access rights that apply before any appeal is filed.

If you cannot be there

You can send someone. The board's rules of procedure provide for an appellant to appear in person, or by an attorney or other duly authorized agent. A representative presenting on your behalf must hold a signed, notarized statement from you.

Note that this is stricter than what the county accepts to file an appeal, where the authorization may be either notarized or on the owner’s letterhead.

If nobody appears, the case is heard in absentia and decided on the documents you filed. You cannot send a letter to be read out instead.

When hearings happen, and what follows

The county describes the BOE’s schedule in two places, and they do not say the same thing. The standing hearing-procedures page says the board meets Monday and Thursday evenings and Wednesday and Friday mornings, from June through December. The year-specific Notice of Meetings sets out that year’s actual sitting dates and runs later than that. Read the notice for the year you are appealing.

If the board changes your number, it orders DTA to make the change, and the change takes effect as of January 1 of the tax year under appeal. Questions about any resulting refund go to DTA, not to the board.

And a decision here is not the last word. Under §58.1-3382, a taxpayer aggrieved by a board order may apply to the circuit court for its correction and revision — in the same manner, and within the same time, as for the correction of an erroneous assessment. The county states that BOE decisions are final but may be appealed further to the Fairfax County Circuit Court, and directs you to the court for its own procedures.

Route 3: Circuit Court

This one is litigation. It is worth reading even if you would never file it, because the statute governing it also tells you what the county has to be able to defend.

Get Virginia legal advice before relying on any of this, including our summary of it. What follows is what the statute says, not advice about your property.

Who the parties are, and how it runs

An application goes to the circuit court for the locality that made the assessment, and it is before the court when it is filed in the clerk’s office. You and the locality are necessary parties, and the locality is named in the application in a set form — for us, as a county rather than a city or town.

Proceedings run as an action at law before the court, sitting without a jury, and the county attorney defends the locality. Filing costs are the clerk’s fees set by statute.

What you have to prove

For real property, §58.1-3984(B) starts you at a disadvantage on purpose. There is a presumption that the valuation determined by the assessor — or as adjusted by the board of equalization — is correct. If you went to the BOE and got a partial reduction, it is that adjusted number you now have to attack.

To rebut the presumption, the statute asks you to show by a preponderance of the evidence:

• that the property was assessed at more or less than its fair market value, or that the assessment is not uniform in its application; and
• that it was not arrived at in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practices, procedures, rules and standards as prescribed by nationally recognized professional appraisal organizations — the statute names the International Association of Assessing Officers — and applicable Virginia law on valuing property.

Both limbs. As elsewhere in Virginia assessment law, a factual error helps you with the second one:

“Mistakes of fact, including computation, that affect the assessment shall be deemed not to be in accordance with generally accepted appraisal practice.” (Va. Code §58.1-3984(B))

That is the same rule the main guide explains for the BOE. It does not excuse you from the first limb.

The provision that makes the county show its work

This provision is written for ordinary homes, and a version of it applies at the Board of Equalization too — see the BOE route above.

In an appeal of residential property filed by an owner of real property containing less than four residential units, the assessing officer has two duties under §58.1-3984(B):

1. Notice. He must give you, or your authorized representative, the written notice required by subsection E of §58.1-3331.
2. Records, on request. On written request he must provide copies of the §58.1-3331 assessment records that pertain to how he determined the fair market value of the property under appeal.

The request has its own timing, and this is where the court version differs from the BOE version. It is made after the appeal is filed in circuit court and no later than 45 days before trial, unless the court orders otherwise. The officer then has 15 days from the request to produce the records.

If he does not, the statute changes the order of the trial. Before you present anything, the assessing officer must put three things in evidence:

• the assessment records he maintains under §58.1-3331;
• testimony explaining the methodologies he used to reach the assessed value; and
• testimony that the value was arrived at in accordance with those generally accepted appraisal practices and applicable Virginia law.

After that, the burden is back on you, by a preponderance, to rebut what he presented.

There is also a confidentiality mechanism. Before confidential tax information under §58.1-3 is released in discovery, the court enters a protective order in wording the statute itself sets out, listing who may see the information. Once that order is entered, §58.1-3 no longer blocks release of relevant material responsive to discovery.

We are not going to tell you what to do with any of that. It is the reason this section says get legal advice.

Two of the three can move your number the wrong way

On both county routes, filing reopens the assessment rather than starting a one-way request for a reduction.

At the BOE, the board equalizes your assessment by increasing, decreasing or affirming it. On administrative review, the original assessed value may be affirmed, increased, or decreased.

Whether that is a real risk for your property is a question of fact about your property, not about procedure. Can my assessment go up if I appeal? works through how the reopening operates on each route.

Questions worth answering before you choose

We are not going to tell you which route to use. That depends on facts about your property and your circumstances that we do not have, and the choice is yours. What we can do is set out what actually differs.

Is your argument about a fact, or about a value? A wrong square footage, a basement recorded as finished when it is not, a room count that is off — the county’s own records can settle these. Administrative review puts your file in front of the people who keep those records. How to check your property record for errors covers where they turn up. An argument that the market does not support the number is a different kind of argument, and it rests on comparable sales.

Can you be somewhere at 7 p.m. on a Monday? The BOE sits on a fixed schedule and expects you or a notarized representative. If neither is realistic, your case will be decided on your paperwork alone — which is allowed, and which makes the paperwork carry everything.

How much is actually at stake? The effort is the same whether the number moves a little or a lot. Is appealing worth it? sets out the arithmetic without pretending to know your answer.

Which deadlines are still open? This decides more than preference does. The deadlines page lists every date and what each one gates.

And is the real problem the bill rather than the value? If so, none of these three routes is the right tool — the relief programs are.

Sources

• Fairfax County DTA — Real Estate Assessment Appeals (administrative review; verification of physical description; outcome may be affirmed, increased or decreased; filing early)
• Fairfax County BOE — Hearing Procedures (order of procedure and time allocations; not addressing DTA staff; total-value rule; notarized representative; in absentia; effective January 1; refunds via DTA; appeal to Circuit Court; the June-through-December schedule statement)
• Fairfax County BOE — Notice of Meetings (the sitting dates for a given year, which run later than the standing page’s June-through-December statement)
• Fairfax County BOE — Filing an Appeal (June 1 deadline and channels; evidence in by the filing deadline; authorization to file)
• Fairfax County BOE — Membership (nine members, residents, majority property owners)
• Fairfax County BOE — Rules of Procedure (appearance in person or by an attorney or other duly authorized agent; proceedings where no one appears)
• Fairfax Circuit Court — Fees (clerk’s fees are set by statute and revised; no figure is quoted here)
• City of Fairfax — Assessment Appeals (separate jurisdiction with its own forms and deadlines)
• Va. Code §58.1-3984 — (A): application periods, filing in the clerk’s office, necessary parties and the locality’s naming, action at law without a jury, the confidentiality order; (B): the real-property presumption, the conjunctive burden, the mistakes-of-fact rule, and the residential notice-and-records provision with its 45-day request and 15-day production periods
• Va. Code §58.1-3331 — the assessment records themselves, and the subsection E notice referenced by §58.1-3984(B)
• Va. Code §58.1-3 — confidentiality of tax information, and the protective-order mechanism §58.1-3984(A) builds on it
• Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County v. Leasco Realty, Inc., 221 Va. 158, 166 (1980) — nonuniformity requires that the appraisal be out of line generally with appraisals of other neighborhood properties comparable in character and use
• Tysons Corner Hotel Plaza LLC v. Fairfax County, Record No. 1655-23-4 (Va. Ct. App., Oct. 29, 2024) (published) — quotes the Leasco rule at 221 Va. 166 and restates the two-part §58.1-3984(B) test in a Fairfax case

This page is general information about Fairfax County’s published procedures and Virginia law. It is not legal advice, and it does not recommend a route for any particular property — that choice depends on facts we do not know. Procedures are the county’s and the Commonwealth’s; confirm them against the linked sources before filing.