Advice requested for property tax appeal

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markfaix
Posts: 340
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:47 pm

Advice requested for property tax appeal

Post by markfaix »

I have appealed my property tax assessment for my home and wanted to request advice for my hearing next week. They counted one too many bedrooms, so that should be straightforward. What do you think about bringing up any of the following:

1. My yard is about 0.5 acre, but the property area is listed as 1.5 acres because the property line not only includes the yard, but also the road in front of my house and a large section of a common area similar to a college campus quad. Although the common area is technically our property, the HOA maintains it, and people walk on it all the time. Is it reasonable to argue this should not be considered in the assessment?

2. In the comps listed by the assessor, all were from 2021. One of the 3 comps was from when I purchased the house in 2021. Is it acceptable to use my own house in the assessment? Is 2021 too far back? Interest rates were a lot lower then.

3. My realtor found other comps that would justify a lower price. However, she said that there were other comps that would support a higher assessed price. Have you ever appealed a tax assessment and gotten an increase in the assessed value?
Katietsu
Posts: 7677
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 1:48 am

Re: Advice requested for property tax appeal

Post by Katietsu »

This is going to be very location specific, isn’t it?

I have successfully appealed. But I was considering selling at the time. So, I had a certified appraisal. I also had the report from a potential listing agent with a suggested price and comps.

Many areas have not seen a price drop despite increasing mortgage rates. You would need to know what has happened in your local market.

The wrong number of bedrooms and discrepancy between total acres and personal use acres would only be relevant in my jurisdiction if they could be used to justify a lower value.
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somewhatentertained
Posts: 119
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:19 pm

Re: Advice requested for property tax appeal

Post by somewhatentertained »

markfaix wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 12:58 pm I have appealed my property tax assessment for my home and wanted to request advice for my hearing next week. They counted one too many bedrooms, so that should be straightforward. What do you think about bringing up any of the following:

1. My yard is about 0.5 acre, but the property area is listed as 1.5 acres because the property line not only includes the yard, but also the road in front of my house and a large section of a common area similar to a college campus quad. Although the common area is technically our property, the HOA maintains it, and people walk on it all the time. Is it reasonable to argue this should not be considered in the assessment? Logically, if you own it, you pay the tax on it. Maintenance is probably irrelevant.

2. In the comps listed by the assessor, all were from 2021. One of the 3 comps was from when I purchased the house in 2021. Is it acceptable to use my own house in the assessment? Is 2021 too far back? Interest rates were a lot lower then.My area only used 2022 for comps. Not sure about yours. Your assessor would know.

3. My realtor found other comps that would justify a lower price. However, she said that there were other comps that would support a higher assessed price. Have you ever appealed a tax assessment and gotten an increase in the assessed value?No. I appealed this year based on narrowing the selection of comps to late last year (both houses on either side of me sold in the last half of the year). The assessor would have none of it. However, there was an error in the tax drawing that listed my second story as a base level, which is taxed at a higher rate. The assessor found this for me while I was on the phone with him and got it corrected. This was during the informal appeal period and I have already gotten a tax value re-assessment letter back for $80K less than the originally assessed value on 1/1/2023. my taxes have nearly doubled this year, regardless.
jes74
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2019 11:12 pm

Re: Advice requested for property tax appeal

Post by jes74 »

As the chair of appeals for my small town, here's my advice:
0) There are a lot of specifics due to local ordinance and state law. So these are general.
1) Should definitely be highlighted. Hopefully you have the property card, which should indicate the portion that is allocated to your land (vs. building) and would have a code on whether this is already taken into account. Good argument.
2) Each state has a date that the valuation is made from. Its possible yours is 1/1/22. In fact, its likely as its way too soon for a revaluation based on 1/1/23. We're still hearing appeals that started last fall with a 1/1/22 date. So if its 1/1/22, the best comps are from 7/1/21 to 6/30/22.
3) IN MY TOWN, we can't increase values, only lower them or leave them. It frequently comes up though when the owners cherrypicked comps are matched by other comps from the assessor or a board member. When someone shows us their undervalued neighbor, my response is usually that the correct action would be to increase the neighbors value, not lower yours. It would be pretty rare to increase a value this late in the process (I have seen it done during the informal appeals process when a broader issue such as valuation between neighborhoods becomes visible). In our town, you'd get adjusted the next year ONLY if the process discloses something like an addition not on the property card.
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