Five marina owners on Lake Lanier who saw their local tax bills jump by as much as 3,000 percent—totaling a nearly $50 million increase—will not have to pay that tab, thanks to a ruling Monday from the Georgia Supreme Court. But, the high-dollar case turned on a technicality.

The Hall County Board of Tax Assessors failed to follow state law in scheduling a settlement conference within 45 days of receiving the marinas' notice of appeal, Justice Michael Boggs wrote in a unanimous opinion.

Boggs dispensed with an argument from the board's lawyers, who said the law divests superior courts of their authority. “We disagree,” Boggs wrote in an 18-page opinion. “The requirements imposed by the Act do not remove a case from the jurisdiction of the superior court. Rather, they are part of an administrative procedure that, like many others, imposes threshold conditions before the appeal reaches the jurisdiction of the superior court.”

The decision enforced new rules for an ad valorem tax that went into effect in January 2016. Boggs said a new law “does not change this long-standing administrative process, but simply provides for additional requirements to be met, by both the Board and the taxpayer.”

The Hall County Board of Tax Assessors was represented by Joseph Homans of Fox, Chandler, Homans, Hicks & Mckinnon in Dawsonville.

The marinas' attorneys are J. Ethan Underwood and Lauren Giles of Miles Hansford & Tallant in Cumming.

“We're obviously pleased. This is the result our clients wanted,” Underwood said. But because the decision only addresses procedural questions, the underlying issue of how to tax the docks and other improvements to the lake front property still have to be addressed this year. Conversations about that are in progress, he said.

According to the court, the five marinas lease shoreline property on Lake Lanier from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. All five have added, and own, improvements to the marinas such as docks, swim platforms, bathhouses, restaurants and stores, which Hall County assesses for ad valorem taxation. In 2015 the county recalibrated its assessments. The docks and additions previously had been valued and taxed separately as personal property, like automobiles. After the change, they were included within the value of the companies' leasehold interest and taxed as attachments to the realty.

Here's what the marina owners saw when they opened the tax bills in question, according to the court:

• Westrec Properties' tax bill jumped from $161,383 to $4.9 million, nearly a 3,000 percent increase;
• PS Recreational Properties' bill rose from $1.26 million to $24.5 million, a more than a 1,800 percent increase;
• Chattahoochee Parks' bill rose from $396,751 to $13.2 million, more than a 3,200 percent increase;
• March First's bill rose from $845,188 to $4.3 million, more than a 400 percent increase;
• AMP III-Lazy Days' bill rose from $1.23 million to $5.5 million, nearly a 350 percent increase.