Appealing property tax assessment

[fluffernutter]

Has anyone here ever appealed their property tax assessment and been successful?  We just got our statement yesterday and our taxes are going up by over 2k this year!

[atarianna]

That is a big increase.

Before formally appealing, I would research neighbor's assessments (public record) and also loosely research recent comparable sales (last 6 months). Have values increased dramatically near you?

When we appealed, I had to compare 3 recentl sales and 5 comparable home values to appeal but we were successful.

[Deleted]

I'm relatively close to you geographically. I live in the city starting with a Y and ours are going up $1600. Someone in my neighborhood Facebook group is on Y city council and he posted directions for how to appeal, but said chances are low since increases are happening all over our metro area.

Good news is that property values went up?

[lemoncupcake]

We hire a company to protest for us each year - if they succeed on the appeal, we pay them 33% of the money that they save us on taxes. Unfortunately, they have been unsuccessful the last few years since our property values continue to rise. In that case, we don't owe them anything for their work.

It might be worth checking to see if something similar is available in your area.

[toepick]

I used a recent appraisal to lower my assessment. All I had to do was submit the appraisal and they lowered it to the appraised amount.

[cruiser]

We appeal ours. We put together a list of comps in the neighborhood and researched all of the homes near us to compare their taxes and assessments. 4 years ago, we were successful in getting ours lowered a little bit, but the one big benefit was the tax rate was frozen for 2 or 3 years. We decided to appeal it again this year. We didn't have a really good case, but had an example or two. We didn't get any reduction in the current year, but again, the tax rate is frozen for several more years.

[lolalolalola]

We did years ago. We had some recent sales on the street that we used for comparison. We got our taxes reduced by $500/year

[mich1]

I would separate out what your house assessment is vs other assessments.

At the last vote, the voters passed special assessments for schools, for EMTs and for new fire engines. The combination of the 3, for us has resulted in a higher property tax of almost $3000, not accounting for any increase in property value. It didn't help that the house down the street just sold for about $200K more than any other house on this street.

[isabel]

Feb 28, 2017 11:52:17 GMT -5 mich1 said:

I would separate out what your house assessment is vs other assessments.

At the last vote, the voters passed special assessments for schools, for EMTs and for new fire engines. The combination of the 3, for us has resulted in a higher property tax of almost $3000, not accounting for any increase in property value. It didn't help that the house down the street just sold for about $200K more than any other house on this street.

This. Our taxes went up a similar amount about 6 months after we bought our house. It was mostly due to assessments that were voted on for things like the local school district, cleaning up a nature area nearby, stuff like that. We didn't fight it though. It increased our monthly payment by about $300, which wasn't fun. Our home value did increase too though. On the plus side, we are closing on our house on Friday and based on the settlement statement, we have basically had a third income working for us this whole time.

[mrs.jacinthe]

If you're having trouble finding comparable sales to fight your assessment, give your realtor (provided you had a decent relationship) a call. They should be able to find some good comps for you.

[manders]

I'm a Tax Assessor in NJ. Speaking from my experience in a municipality in NJ only, as long as you have a valid case (3 to 5 good, arms length transactions) that took place in the assessing time frame (between October 1, 2015 - October 1, 2016 for tax year 2017), and they are all comparable (similar size, design, neighborhood, and year built, though year built can be subjective and less important when making your case), the assessor will most likely make an offer to settle the appeal. just remember that using sales of larger or nicer homes with a low sales price isn't really a good comparable because that allows for too many adjustments to be made which only a licensed appraiser can really do. As long as its not in an LLC, Inc, Co, or trust, an attorney really isn't needed. I only recommend appraisers when you have difficulty finding your own comps or if its a commercial/industrial/income producing property. Make sure you ask about the Director's ratio so that you know assessment/sales ratio you are dealing with. Hopefully this helps, but verify with your assessor.I'm not quite sure how much the laws change per state.

One more thing: stay away from distress sales. The assessor can use the "usability" of the sale against you. Examples are: short sales, estate sales, bank sales. I'm sure you get the picture lol. Good luck!

[fluffernutter]

manders,sending you a PM

[Mrs. ChanandlerBong]

We did. It was a lot of "info gathering". We had to figure out what was considered a comp for our house, then track down all the properties that were our compsnthat sold that year to prove they had us at too high of a "per sq ft" assessment.

Then we had to go talk to someone, I forget where and present the information we were using to support why we thought the value was too high.

It was worth it because they did lower it but the process required time off of work.

[carrotsmakemefat]

Someone else posted about this very recently...don't know if she ever came back to update but it was in the past month

Is this a home you just bought? Is it possible that a reassessment was done when you bought?

[Captain Serious]

I appealed successfully in two different towns (in the same state). Each town had significantly different things they would consider. In the first, they didn't care about the condition of the home and/or property. They only cared about comparable listing values. In the second, they were very interested in the condition of the home and property, and that's were we made the biggest progress.

I would reach out to the listers and find out what they will consider in an acceptable appeal, and base your research and presentation around that. It doesn't hurt to include other information, but your focus should hone in on what they will consider a valid reason for reconsidering your assessment.

Good luck!

[CheeringCharm]

Yes. We did it by finding out what the houses around us were assessed at, showing that our house is comparable in terms of size etc., and got it lowered that way. It worked for us because in our county, your most recent reassessment is automatically tied to your purchase price. So some homes that people have lived in for decades can be assessed for much lower than recently purchased homes. I'm not sure if it works like that everywhere though.