MURFREESBORO, TN (WGNS) – A simmering dispute between Rutherford County’s Property Assessor and the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office has now boiled into public view. Assessor Rob Mitchell told WGNS that the Comptroller is “sanctioning improper property taxation” by forcing changes to how certain homes in the county are classified.
Mitchell shared an email from longtime property owner Dennis Milnar, who owns several single‑family attached rental homes — commonly known as zero‑lot‑line dwellings. These units share a common wall but are legally recognized as two separate residences. Mitchell said they have been assessed as residential property since the 1980s, consistent with Article II, Section 28 of the Tennessee Constitution.
According to Mitchell, that changed when agents from the Comptroller’s Office directed Rutherford County to reclassify those homes as commercial property. He said the county complied, but only “under duress” and against the advice of the late county attorney Robert Lee, who had issued a legal opinion on the matter shortly before his passing…