Actually the law regarding the tax on houses was enacted on 21 Dec 1814
for taxes in 1815, not in 1820. It stated in part "For all houses and
lots in towns, three dollars and sixty-three an half cents for every
hundred dollars' yearly rent or value thereof; and on each house in the
country, exceeding in value five hundred dollars, one eighth of one per
centum, on the value thereof above five hundred dollars,"
Barbara Vines Little, CG
Dominion Research Services
PO Box 1273
Orange, VA 22960
540-832-3473
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CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under
license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the
US Patent & Trademark Office.
Camille Wells wrote:
>> This idea that story-and-a-half houses were built that way to avoid a higher
>> tax bill has been around for a long time. The truth is, houses were not taxed
>> in the colonial period; there was a kind of land tax called a quitrent (2
>> shillings for each 100 acres of land) that landowners in colonial Virginia
>> paid annually to the crown in order to gain title to their land. If they
>> failed to pay the quitrent for a period of time, the crown technically could
>> take the land back or sell it to someone else, etc. After the Revolution
>> beginning in 1782, independent Virginia imposed both a land and personal
>> property taxes.
>>
>> Linda Rowe
>> Historical Research
>> Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
>>
>
> And if I may add to Linda's correct answer: independent Virginia's personal
> property taxes, starting in 1782, didn't include assessments on houses or
> any other sort of building. The matter of buildings and their value were
> left to the land tax assessors who just included their perceived quality of
> the buildings on a particular tract or lot in their per-acre tax assessment.
>
> After some new legislation in 1820, collectors began to break out from their
> value-per-acre assessment an "amount added on account of building." But no
> particular characteristics of a house--closets, second stories, window
> glass, or number of hearths--had anything to do with assessed value.
>
> Camille Wells
> Architectural Historian
>
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