Posted: 8/28/2012 2:12:17 PM EDT
| How do you go about contesting your property taxes? We recenly had our house appraised to refinance our mortgage and our home is worth almost 32k less than the value we're being taxed on. I have a call in to our tax accessor, but what exactly do I tell him when I finally get him on the phone? |
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Tagged for general interest. I'm sure the process varies a lot from state to state, and even by local jurisdiction. Here in San Diego County it's a simple form, most people only have to provide a list of comparable sales from a credible source. My cousin in a "historic" part of Houston is constantly at war with the tax assessor. |
| Your appraised value has nothing to do with the taxed value. The appraisal district knows it takes "x" amount of dollars to run the state, county, city, etc., and the Readers Digest version is, they divide up by the taxable properties, and you pay your fair share, to operate t he government. |
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I paid an appraiser to do mine, but basically you present the new appraisal fill out a form and that is it. They cannot contest the appraisal though. My appraiser is known to be very strict on values and I left room for him to devalue the house as much as possible (make it messy and don't fix anything until he is gone). Saved me over $1500 a year now. ETA: what part if Illinois are you in, I can hook you up. The fee was nominal. |
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Post in your hometown forum or ask a local tax pro. Property tax assessment and appeal procedures vary from state to state. In some states they vary from county to county.
Here in King County, WA it takes a lot of time and effort to appeal a property tax assessment (win or lose). My wife does it for her parents almost every year. Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses, but it always takes a lot of time and effort. |
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Contact your local property assessor. In most areas they are an elected official and will at least give you a chance to explain your side of the argument. If you've had an appraisal it may have no effect on the actual property tax assessment as tax assessment and market value are two very different things. Most of the time it's just based on square footage and which part of town you're in. The assessor may tell you to pound sand, but it's always worth a try.
ETA: EDDIECRUM's explaination is about as close as it gets. |
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We get an annual assessment from the county and have 45 days to appeal. We also just had an assessment conducted by the VA which was 30K less than what the county assessment was. We appealed with the VA figures attached; it was re-assessed by the county for 5K LESS than what the VA figure or 35K less from their original figure. Substantial tax savings.
As I'm sure you can tell, localities are tying to find ways to recoup revenue lost during this crappy economy without making cuts; they hope everyone will just STFU and pay. I'm friggin taxed out, I had to cut back so should government, federal and local. |
| I had a similar situation when I had an appraisal done and it came in about 10% less that the assessed value by the county. There is a form called a "property tax protest form" that you can download from the county's website. They usually only let you protest your annual tax assessment during a certain time window annually. For example, they mail out our tax assessments here around April and you have something like 30 days to file a protest after you get your assessment. If you miss that 30 days you have to wait until the next year to protest. So I filled out the protest form and mail it in with a copy of the appraisal. They lowered my assessment value without question down to the exact amount of the appraisal. It is pretty hard for them to argue with the value listed on a certified appraisal. You'll have a much harder time protesting your value without a certified appraisal, but it can be done if you do your homework and do all the comp sales research. |
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We did it in Texas three years ago after buying a house. The tax value should have been automatically set to the sale price, but the taxing authority ignored the form we sent them that informs them that we just bought the house, then they ignored our protest notice that explained again that we had just bought the house, and finally we had to both take off work and drive across Houston to protest it in person. When we got there, they fixed it in about five minutes, but it made us realize that their policy was to make you put forth the most effort possible before they would obey the law in order to try and make you give up. Also, in Texas you can get a free copy of the "evidence" to be used "against" you at the in-person hearing. Our was so full of bogus comparable properties it was laughable. They ignored the 10+ houses in our neighborhood that had the SAME EXACT floor plan as ours. They included houses in other neighborhoods miles away. They even included a multi-acre commercial lot that sits on an interstate frontage road, valued at over $8,000,000, and tried to say that that was somehow relevant in determining the value of our 1/4 acre residential lot 5 miles away. Expect all of this and more, included lazy government employees who don't give a fuck. |