Hotel Foxtrot Sierra--A Bit of Tax Help, Please?

[Guncrazy]

Okay, thanks for everyone's tips on getting data off my hard drive in the other thread, but that's on the back burner for the moment.

I just got a notice from the county property assessor's office that informs me that the appraised value of my house has gone up...by $32,000 dollars. Naturally, this is going to make a bit of difference in the amount of tax that I'm paying on it.

I've got a window of a few days in which I can dispute the new assessment, but I don't have the first clue as to how to fight this.

Any ideas?

[randy]

Check with your neighbors and see if they got hit with similar raises. A group of you raising a stink, especially if hitting up your city councilmen/county commissioners, etc. might make more headway than just one person.

See what similar houses in your area sold for, especially recently after the market tanked. Also what is being asked for similar house that have been and still on the market.

Have you made any improvements/additions/renovations since the last assessment? If not it will be real interesting to see how they can raise the value of a property during a time when actual selling prices are dropping in general.

That's all I have off the top of my head form watching some similar situations in my area, no direct personal experience (at least not yet thank goodness).

Good luck.

[Bob K]

Don't know where you live, but here in Chicago, there are lawyers who specialize in fighting property tax increases. Go ye to the yellow pages. It's worked for us.

[Fivetoes]

Go to your asessor's office and ask how to dispute the increase. Our board of appeals meets yearly to hear such cases. Follow Randy's advice, talk to a realtor and get a feeling as to what your home is worth.

[Drone 7 of lots more]

Sounds like they may have recently passed some new spending that needs funding, or are taking a hit from the fed/state gimme bag. It isn't really your money, don'tcha know. You're just holding it until the nanny state needs it. They do know better, after all.

[BadgerVet]

The realtor may give you some comparable sales but any figure they come up with is usually a PFA (plucked from the air). A appraiser will cost a few hundred but will deliver a written report with comp sales. However, the tax assessor can and usually does ignore them.

If everyone got an increase, it may be a total new assessment of the town. Assessments are supposed to be within a certain percentage range of 'fair market value' and if the state decides they are not it can order a new total reassessment. These days, who knows what fair market value is. In my area, about 30% of the sales are banks selling their foreclosures for less than the amount they have loaned against them.

The other half of your tax equation is the mill rate. Lets say your previous assessment value was $200,000 and the mill rate is $20.00 per thousand. Your taxes would be $4,000.00. If your new assessment is $232,000 and the mill rate stays the same, your taxes will be $4,640.00. If the state just required a new valuation but your town budget stays the same, the town could lower its mill rate to $17.24 per thousand and still fund the budget. And your taxes would still be $4,000.00.


A typical ploy for the tax assessor is to under value your house. Then no one calls him to complain. The mill rate is set higher and the town gets the budget funded. If the tax assessor values your house high, everyone and their brother is calling him and he hates that.

Check with your town board, city council, whatever you have to deal with, and see if they are proposing a increased budget or if the town got a total reassesment. That will give you a clue if taxes are going up or if the mill rate might be going down.

Almost forgot. In my area, the tax assessment is set in January but the notices don't go out until late fall, usually November. Then when you go in to dispute the increase 'with all your recent sales' they throw them out because the assessment was from January and all your sales happened after that date. Sorry, you lose. Find out the date they did your assessment and get sales from that time frame. Also, get sales going back 18 months to the present, document the upward, nuetral, or downward trend and if you have a good case, TAKE YOUR LAWYER ALONG. They will blow you off if they can; if you have your lawyer along, they will at least pretend to listen and won't cut you off short before you can present your case. Good Luck.

[mekender]

if you live in any kind of a modern county, the tax appraiser will have a searchable website that will list everything you need to know about the neighborhood and its tax values, sale amounts, etc...

[Rich]

Take pictures, lots and lots of pictures, of anything wrong with your property and particularly of any eyesores in your neighborhood. Try to find out what the last 5-10 properties in your neighborhood sold for, and take what pictures you can of them, and then use the differences you see in your argument. Make sure you note the square footage of each property too.

[MarkD]

About a year after my wife and I bought our house it was reassessed, as was everyones in the town. The assessed value more than doubled. We started off at about 2/3 what we paid for the house, wound up at about 150% of what we paid for it (and much more than we could have sold it for). Our taxes didn't go up by that amount, thankfully, they lowered the rate when they re-assessed, but they've gone up every year.

As an aside, someone on the old forum complained when his property taxes hit $600 per year, I'd be thrilled if my taxes went DOWN to $600 a MONTH.

[Guncrazy]

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

There are a lot of people in town who are upset with the recent assessments, especially since the assessed rates are all higher, but market value on their homes has gone down.

Couldn't get through to the assessor's office, today, and apparently I'm not the only one. I'll try again on Monday.