Monongalia County Assessor: Homestead Exemption intake

The exemption is the State's, under Code 11-6B-3: the first twenty thousand dollars of assessed value off the property tax of an owner-occupied homestead for an owner sixty-five or older or certified permanently and totally disabled. The Monongalia County Assessor is Mark A. Musick, at 243 High Street, Room 335, Morgantown WV 26505, phone (304) 291-7222, real estate office (304) 291-7279, open Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; the homestead contact is Steve Knoblock, extension 2012. The county's own form is the most statute-literate of the seven counties read. Its application for the $20,000 exemption carries a checkbox "I am retired or separated from active military service due to a permanent and total physical or mental disability", and its certification section names "the forms of documentation as listed in West Virginia Code 11-6B-4" - which include, at 11-6B-4(b)(5), "a written certification signed by the veterans administration". New applicants file between July 1 and December 1, "Those eligible for homestead exemption only need to apply once", and online filing runs through the state SmartFile portal with a step-by-step guide the assessor hosts. The statute's military carve-out is what that checkbox reaches: a service member who kept West Virginia as home of record and returns on retirement or on separation for permanent and total disability is deemed to satisfy the two-year residency test, Code 11-6B-3(a). The assessor's page also points at the Code itself, "please refer to W. Va. Code 11-6B", so a veteran disputed at the counter has the county's own citation to work from.