Property Tax Reduction Service?

[everylastbreath]

I have never challenged my property taxes, I have friends who do it every year and say there is nothing to lose, but I don't know why I am Leary... I have been getting bombarded with letters from companies- how do I choose? Is there anything I should be looking for? How does it work? Do I have to pay their fee or does it come off the top of the reduction?

Help! Tell me what I need to know!

 

[tvguy]

Around here you just write a letter asking for a reduction in your assessment, they investigate, and tell you if they agree it needs to be lowered. I would never pay someone to do that for me.

 

[ArmchairDetective]

Why pay when you can appeal yourself?

It took us all of 20 minutes. Print out local assessment values and explain why you think yours is higher than it should be. That's literally all there is to it.

 

[daughtersrus]

I have never challenged my property taxes, I have friends who do it every year and say there is nothing to lose, but I don't know why I am Leary... I have been getting bombarded with letters from companies- how do I choose? Is there anything I should be looking for? How does it work? Do I have to pay their fee or does it come off the top of the reduction?

Help! Tell me what I need to know!

We can not appeal our property taxes, just our property assessment. The taxing bodies determine the tax rates and then it's multiplied by the assessment.

I appealed our assessment several years in a row and won all of them. The only think that it cost me was my time.

There is probably a specific process that you need to follow. Here we can only do it 30 days after we get our new assessment (which is in Aug and taxes aren't due until the next June and Sept).

We have to contact our local township assessor. If he/she doesn't agree to a reduction, we have to fill out specific forms for our county. They are very detailed and you need to compare your property to similar properties in your area. Pictures and map are required to be included.

If the county doesn't agree, we still have the right to appeal at the state level. That is what I had to do. The assessor refused and the county took his side even after I showed other homes that are the exact model as we have within a block or two of ours were assessed lower.

I filed the papers with the state and won. It took a long time (1 1/2 years) because so many people are appealing. In the end, I got a refund of about $800 the first year, $600 the second year and about $600 this year.

It was well worth my time. I think that they deny at the lower levels knowing that most people will give up. Two other neighbors and I worked on our appeals together the first year. They both gave up after the county denial and now kick themselves for not going on to the state level.

I would never pay a service. It almost sounds like a scam to me.

 

[mrodgers]

What do you do when they come back and assess it for more? Just curious.

I appealed a mobile home once. It wouldn't benefit me since we were selling it and buying the house, but figured it would be good to be able to tell people looking to buy it. They wanted proof of the cost of it when it was purchase new. I didn't buy it new, I bought it used. They wouldn't reassess it. I was paying more in taxes on a single wide mobile home on a rented lot than I do now on my house.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

I agree with other posters - this is something you can do yourself if you are a residential property owner. I would suggest that a commercial property owner get assistance from a lawyer or some other knowledgable professional.

You can go about it many ways but I would suggest that you start with your local town, village or county assessor. In my area I would start with my county's real property office and ask for their assistance with the process. Here in central NY state, the tax rolls are adjusted around March 1st and there is time to grieve your taxes (usually around May). If you are unhappy with the assessment, call today and find out what the process is from your assessment authority. They can tell you how the process works, what you need to do and what the deadline is to grieve the assessed value.

You can also go as far as getting a market value appraisal (you pay a professional appraiser to do this - usuall $300-$400ish). HOWEVER! Most market value appraisals are MORE than the assessed values so you would not want to show this to the assessor. With that said, it is important to know the distinction between an "appraised value" and the "assessed value".

Appraised value is the market value of your home should you wish to sell it and it is determined by a professional appraiser going into your home and reviewing its amenities and comparing it to other comparable homes in your area which have recently sold. This information is not shared with anyone other than you, their client. Only you are privvy to this report unless you choose to share it.

Assessed value is a number that your local property assessor (town, village or county) which is only based upon the information of record (number of rooms, baths, garage, acreage, etc.). These people often just do a drive-by and do not go into your home to see the actual amenities. Ideally, the assessed value should be LESS than your appraised value.

If you know your neighbor has a similar house on the outside and their assessment is less, you could easily use that (and others) to prove your case that your house is over-valued by the assessor. This information is public record and you can get it from your real property office.

If you find that the appraiser values your home at LESS than the current assessed value, you could use that too. But if it appraises for more than the assessment, you can keep that info to yourself.

Good luck and there is never any harm in trying! The worst they can say is "no".

 

[eolian]

I work for an atty that does tax assessment greivances in New York State (Buffalo area) - our office only gets its fee (a % of tax savings) if your assessed value is lowered.

It isn't that difficult to do on your own - go to your town assessor's website. find the grievance form (RP-524). You will need to fill that out and find some comparable recent sales (often they can be found at same website - do not rely on zillow, etc for this as they often list sales that are not arms length) - be sure you are using homes that are similiar in size, style, baths, bedrooms, year built and nearby neighborhoods. Base your requested assessment on the comparables you find. They cannot raise your assessment because you grieved it.

Around here, you turn that in by grievance day and you can request a 5 min meeting with the Board of Assessment Review or no hearing. They will notify you of the results via mail.

Your town may also have informal assessment review prior to grievance day - give the assessor's office a call, it may be as easy as a quick conversation with the Assessor.

 

[auger]

We disputed ours on our own about a year ago.
Filled out the form and turned it in, went to a hearing to give evidence of why the property was not worth what they had it valued at.
Value got reduced from 150K to 96K.
Well worth our time. Took over $1000 off our property taxes each year.
Definitely NOT something I would ever pay someone to do for me.

 

[tvguy]

What do you do when they come back and assess it for more? Just curious.

I appealed a mobile home once. It wouldn't benefit me since we were selling it and buying the house, but figured it would be good to be able to tell people looking to buy it. They wanted proof of the cost of it when it was purchase new. I didn't buy it new, I bought it used. They wouldn't reassess it. I was paying more in taxes on a single wide mobile home on a rented lot than I do now on my house.

I guess there is that risk, but at least here, Assessor's office is so short staffed they never got around to RAISING assessments during the boom, so many folks find the current assessment is about where it should be. At least here, assessed value and market value and two different things. My house's assessed value is $144,000, and market value is about $345,000.

 

[fac]

I have two properties and both are "unique" in around the area..
one is a ranch, but the previous owner added a bedroom on top of the garage, there were already not that many ranch houses around my area, the fact that there is an added bedroom made it quite different from the houses around here. Do I just use houses that have similar square footage? or just a ranch but add the cost per square footage

then the other one is in a different town and is our vacation home, the previous owner turned it to a legal two families. We don't have a plan to rent out their other floor, and it will be used by DD. While most of the houses sold for much less, the town has just re-assessed before we bought the house at end of 2012, the assessed price is significantly higher than what we paid (a short sale), can we use that to challenge the assessed value? Do we need to legally to change it to one family in order to have the taxes lowered? A number of houses on the same street were not able to sell for the "assessed" value of my vacation home and they are off the market for now. Therefore I can't really find a comparable value let along 2 families, how can I get the record of their listed values for sale in the last year when they couldn't even sell them? There are not too many two families houses around that area.