Say you're selling a home this month in the Delaware City school district, and a friend two miles away is selling into Olentangy schools. You've compared notes on staging, on offers, maybe even on the same title company. But when your closing statements land side by side, the tax credit line won't match, and it has nothing to do with who negotiated harder. Ohio drew a line this year that runs straight through Delaware County, and it falls along school district boundaries instead of county lines.
If you're closing on a home here between now and the end of the year, that line is worth understanding before anyone signs a settlement statement.
A New Credit That Doesn't Reach Every Parcel
Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 186 in December 2025, creating what the state calls an Inflation Cap Credit, intended to slow property tax growth tied to certain school levies. Delaware County Auditor George Kaitsa laid out exactly who benefits in a January 2026 statement: homeowners in the Big Walnut, Buckeye Valley, and Delaware City school districts will see the credit applied to their second-half bill. Homeowners in Olentangy, Dublin, and Westerville school districts will not, because those districts weren't sitting at the state's 20-mill floor when Delaware County's last full reappraisal hit in 2023.
That's a technical way of saying the credit only helps districts whose voted millage had already been squeezed down to the legal minimum. Districts still collecting above that floor don't qualify, no matter how much a homeowner's assessed value jumped.
| School district | Gets the Inflation Cap Credit on the 2025 bill (payable 2026)? |
|---|---|
| Delaware City | Yes |
| Big Walnut | Yes |
| Buckeye Valley | Yes |
| Olentangy | No |
| Dublin | No |
| Westerville | No |
Two houses can sit inside the same county, the same zip code, even the same subdivision if it happens to straddle a district line, and land on opposite sides of that table.
Why the Timing Makes This Worse Than It Sounds
Ohio property taxes are billed in arrears. A bill mailed in early 2026 pays for the second half of 2025, not the current year, which is why the process of prorating taxes at closing exists in the first place. As one title agency puts it, a seller who moves out today has essentially lived in the house tax-free for the last several months because the county hasn't issued that bill yet. The seller credits the buyer at closing to cover that gap, usually based on the most recent tax duplicate available.
That's the part that's normally simple. This year it isn't, because the credit itself is retroactive. The legislation requires the Inflation Cap Credit to apply to tax year 2025, which means it has to be worked into a bill that, in a normal year, would already be finalized and mailed. It wasn't. Delaware County Treasurer Ken O'Brien confirmed the second-half due date moved to August 17, 2026, delayed from the usual July 10 deadline, specifically to give the auditor's office time to calculate and apply the credit correctly. County officials statewide were doing the same math on the same tight timeline, which is why Franklin and Delaware counties both pushed their second-half billing back this summer.
If your closing falls before that bill actually posts, whoever is running your proration is working from an estimate or from the first-half figure, not from a number that reflects the credit your district may or may not even qualify for. That's not a paperwork error. It's the honest limit of what anyone can calculate before the county finishes its own math.
What to Actually Do Before You Sign
- Ask your title company which tax duplicate they're using for the proration and whether it already reflects the Inflation Cap Credit. If your closing is happening before mid-August, there's a real chance it doesn't yet.
- Confirm your parcel's school district, not just your mailing address. Delaware, Powell, and the surrounding townships all have parcels that sit in different districts within a few blocks of each other.
- Ask whether your purchase contract includes a re-proration clause. Some Ohio contracts allow buyer and seller to true up the tax credit once the actual bill posts. If yours doesn't, and your closing lands ahead of the county's final numbers, that's worth raising with your agent now rather than after the fact.
- Don't assume your neighbor's number applies to you, even if you share a subdivision entrance. The 20-mill floor test is applied district by district, not street by street.
The Part That Won't Repeat Next Year
This isn't a new normal. The delayed billing window is a one-year adjustment tied specifically to implementing HB 186. Delaware County's own guidance notes that next year's collection dates return to the standard February 10 and July 10 schedule. The county's next full reappraisal has also been pushed back a year, to 2030 instead of 2029, under the state's revised schedule, so the underlying valuations themselves aren't shifting again anytime soon.
That's useful context if you're weighing whether to wait out this year's confusion. There's nothing structural to wait for. The oddity is administrative, tied to a legislative deadline the county is working through right now, not a sign that Delaware County's tax system is about to change again next spring.
It's also worth knowing that the window to formally dispute a 2025 assessed value with the Board of Revision closed on March 31, 2026. If you believed your valuation was too high going into this year, that door is shut until the next filing period opens. Keep it in mind for next year if your notice still looks off once the 2026 triennial update finalizes.
Frequently Asked Questions
My home is in the Olentangy school district within Delaware County. Does the Inflation Cap Credit help me at all? Not directly. Per the auditor's own statement, Olentangy, Dublin, and Westerville school districts weren't at the 20-mill floor during the 2023 reappraisal, so they don't qualify for the credit this cycle. Any change to your bill this year comes from levies voters approved in 2025, not from HB 186.
I'm closing before August 17. What number will actually show up on my settlement statement? That depends on what your title company has available at the time of closing, likely an estimate based on the most recent posted figures rather than the final second-half bill. Ask directly whether the number includes the credit, and whether your contract allows for a post-closing adjustment once the county finalizes it.
Does any of this touch homes I'm considering in Powell or Dublin? Powell sits entirely within Delaware County and is zoned to Olentangy Local School District. Since Olentangy wasn't at the 20-mill floor during the 2023 reappraisal, Powell homeowners fall on the side of the table that doesn't receive the Inflation Cap Credit this cycle, even though they answer to the same county auditor as neighbors in Delaware City or Big Walnut schools who do. Dublin is more split. The city itself sits mostly in Franklin County, but the Dublin City School District also reaches into Delaware County, which is exactly why Delaware County's auditor named Dublin in the same statement as Olentangy and Westerville. A Delaware County parcel zoned to Dublin schools follows Delaware County's calendar and misses the credit. A Franklin County parcel zoned to Dublin schools is going through Franklin County's own separate 2026 triennial update instead, with a tentative average residential increase near 9 percent under a different auditor's office entirely. Always check the parcel, not just the school name on the listing.
Tax mechanics like these rarely show up on a listing sheet, but they show up on a closing statement, and by then it's harder to renegotiate. If you're weighing a sale or purchase in Delaware, Powell, or anywhere else in this corner of Central Ohio and want someone who tracks this kind of detail before it becomes a surprise, The Shoaf Team is glad to walk through what it means for your specific parcel. Schedule a free consultation and bring your questions, along with your address.
