Ever Appeal Your Property Taxes?

[revo]

Property taxes in my area are exorbitant and I'm planning on filing appeals at City Hall tomorrow on my properties. I have no idea if they will succeed, but property values in my area have dropped at least 25% since my last assessment.

Anyone ever appeal their property taxes, and did you win or lose? Any help is appreciated.

[joncarlos]

Our school district appealed our assessment. We ended up settling on a pretty good offer for us. They were not expecting us to actually be prepared.

It's all about comps. Find a comparable house to yours (square footage, neighborhood, age, etc) and find out what it was recently valued at/sold for. The other side will have comps favorable to them. You need comps favorable to you. You could also just look at the houses on your block, even if they're not totally similar.

As a postscript, the whole assessment system was overturned and we'll have to go through the process again next year.

[Wonderboy]

Yes, but you need to walk in there with more than just the market is bad. A listing of houses that have sold for less in your immediate neighborhood is good. A recent appraisal is even better.

Usually they'll lower it a little, but don't expect too much.

[revo]

Yes, but you need to walk in there with more than just the market is bad. A listing of houses that have sold for less in your immediate neighborhood is good. A recent appraisal is even better.

Usually they'll lower it a little, but don't expect too much.

On the appeal form itself you have to list 5 comps, which I did. A recent appraisal is good (which we did), but my county requires the appraiser to be at the hearing, and that likely won't happen, considering I'm appealing the values of 3 houses.

They require comp info as of October 1 -- and I have recent sales via Zillow from the immediate 6 months that are in the general lot size and age. But how close is "immediate neighborhood?" 5 blocks? 10 blocks? Same zip code?

[schlesinj]

I appealed my taxes several years ago and I went with houses in my local neighborhood. They reduced it, but it was not as dramatic as I expected.

A few years ago we built a house and were allowed to appeal the house after we moved in. After comparing local sales, an appraisal we received my opinion was the assessor did a good job taking into account the market setting when establishing the initial assessment.

Keep in mind that as people continue appealing tax revenues will go down in the municipality and School District will need to raise taxes to cover the loss in tax revenues. That said, NJ and other states have certain rules against raising taxes over the levy outside of some exceptions.

Good luck.

[Lucky]

All the guys above know what they are talking about. I used to do this kind of work for clients on many different kinds of property, and you can be successful if you have good information, well organized, and well presented. You strike me as a guy who is well organized and can express himself well, so the big thing will be making sure you have solid, documented information to take with you.

Good luck, and please let us know how things turn out.

[cardboardbox]

yes. They dropped the appraised value a whole $1k. :|

[revo]

So I had my hearing this morning -- they dropped my property taxes by almost 40%!!! That's a savings of about $7,000 a year!!!

Took me exactly 30 minutes and cost me $30 in filing fees (well, besides the 7 additional years of overpaying by $7k of course). I didn't have a lawyer, although most of the other 5 people there did. Why doesn't everyone do this??

[Wonderboy]

Why doesn't everyone do this??

It really varies a lot from state to state and even county by county. Some boards are tough and others compromise a lot if you are the squeaky wheel.

In any case, good for you. I said not to expect too much and I'm glad that was off.

[onejayhawk]

I dont want them changing my appraisal. The lot was partitioned, and the other partition was the origonal address, and got over 70% of the old appraised value. 60/40 might be more realistic, plus we ahve both done extensive upgrade.

J

[revo]

It really varies a lot from state to state and even county by county. Some boards are tough and others compromise a lot if you are the squeaky wheel.

In any case, good for you. I said not to expect too much and I'm glad that was off.

Thanks. I thought I was going there to make an appeal, you know, a presentation to the judge. Turns out, I just sat at a table with the Assessor, and he already had his numbers figured out. His final numbers were even $20k and $40k under the assessment I requested!!!!

He said, "I've been doing this job a long time. You got a great deal when you bought these properties. Even my appraiser said so." That made me feel even better than the drop in taxes.

:mistert:

[Hammer]

How did you go about filing and what did you bring to the hearing?

[revo]

Here's what I did:

1 - went onto my county's website to download the specific property tax appeal form.
2 - went to my town's Tax Assessor's office in City Hall to view comparable sales of 2- and 3-family houses (they also have 1-family as well, FYI). You have to use comps from no later of October 1 of the prior year. Frankly, I just picked the five best that would help my case, but it turns out that didn't really matter, as they seemed to have their own figures they were working from.
3 - filled out the form with up to 5 comps as required; put in a new requested assessment I calculated from those 5 comps; paid the $15 per form filing fee; and dropped the forms off at the County's tax assessor's office. They said they'd get back to me with a hearing date.
4 - received the hearing date in the mail. The notice said I could go it alone or have an attorney there either representing me alone, if I could not make it, or accompanying me. I didn't use an attorney (and not sure why others would, to be honest).
5 - went to the hearing today with the filed forms and the 10 total comps for my 2 properties. Turns out I didn't need them.
6 - In the courtroom, the Tax Assessor calls me up and basically just presented his figures. There was no discussion. He just said "here's my new assessment for you. You're going to save a ton of money." Their assessment was, as I mentioned, $20k and $40k below my requested re-assessment. It was as if he was on my side. As per Wonderboy, that's probably not the case everywhere.

So to sum up: I filled out the forms, dropped them off at City Hall, paid the $30, and then just went to court to hear their judgment where they said I'd save $7,000 a year. Not sure what an attorney would do anywhere along the way so IMO using one is not necessary.

[Kevin Seitzer]

In my county there is no fee, and I also don't see why you'd need an attorney. Though some of the details are different than revo's experience, the basic process is the same:
1. file form with county
2. gather information on recent comparable sales
3. hearing with assessor (or settlement offer from assessor prior to hearing)

[revo]

Our property taxes are so low, relatively speaking, here in New Mexico that it probably wouldn't behoove me to get an attorney anyways. I think we're at about $2,200/year or so. Still, we've been hit with some of the same (bad) housing market adjustments that everyone else has and still got our property taxes raised. I'd guess that $30 is a decent enough wager to see if I can save a few hundred bucks.

Yeah, although my dollar figure I'm sure seems exorbitant (my taxes on these two properties were $10k apiece before), the figure was still lowered by 35%. Heck, you'd take a gamble of 30 minutes of your time for $600.

Of course, if $2,200 in taxes seems about what new sales are paying, then you're not going to have much of a case unfortunately.