The Inside Scoop on Getting Your Property Taxes Reduced

Here's a great comment left on my post titled One Positive of the Housing Decline that I thought you all would want to see:

My wife is a property tax assessor for our county, as well as a licensed appraiser at the state level. In our state, residences are reassessed every 3 years. The process is known as a "mass appraisal" because it has to be done at the neighborhood level (note that several "subdivisions" can make up a neighborhood. Quality of construction, square footage, land, and additions are some of the factors taken into account.

I don't recall the exact numbers, but in these mass appraisals, the goal (and state law) is that something like 90% of the homes should be within 10% of their "market value", that is, the price that the market would support if the property were sold in an arms-length transaction. In a year where market values are down over a three year span, the valuations of those homes being reassessed will be down. In a year where the market values are up over a three year span, the assessments will go up.

Also, due to the "average" nature of the mass appraisal, the chances of a property being undervalued are about the same as a property being overvalued. Of course, you don't hear of many people appealing their undervaluation. ;-)

While beastlike is correct about the budget being arrived at before tax rates are set, the assumption that the dollar amount of your taxes remains the same only applies if everyone in the county appealed their valuation when home values in the area drop.

The law is a bit tricky on this point -- Any property owner is required to file a "return" (think income tax return) each year during a certain window. This return simply allows you to state what you believe the property to be worth. The county can either accept your value or reject it. If they reject it, you have the right to appeal. If you do not file a return, the county's previous assessment becomes your automatic return. In essence, by failing to file a return, you are saying that you agree with the previously assessed value.

However, those homes that are up for their three year reassessment will be assigned a new value, and the property owners notified of the new assessment. These owners (one-third of the county each year) have the right to appeal their reassessment.

If you (a) did not file a return or (b) were not reassessed, then you have NO rights to appeal. This is the important part, at least in our state, and I would assume many others. If you believe the value of your home has dropped since your last assessment (or you believe a previous assessment was overvalued), FILE A RETURN. Otherwise you are stuck.

Mistakes made in square footage, additions, land, etc. are pretty much always corrected IF the process above is followed. If you come to an assessor after the windows have passed, their hands are pretty much tied. The values have been passed on to the county board at that point, and the budget will be set based on those values. The assessors cannot modify them after that point unless you filed a return (with a different value) or were reassessed in that year.

If you filed a return or were reassessed, and believe that you could not sell your property for the amount that you are assessed for, then you need to support that with reasonable comparisons of nearby, equivalent, arms-length transactions for the time period being appealed. For every appeal, my wife will research nearby transactions and see if they support the property owner's numbers. If they do, then she will go ahead and modify the assessment accordingly. It's understood that some percentage of the properties will be overvalued due to the nature of mass appraisals, and it's her responsibility to change these when they are brought to her attention.

Do NOT bring comparisons that are unrelated to your property--A father selling to a son, a foreclosed home, homes too far away from yours, vastly different square footages, vastly different acreages, etc. You are looking for comparisons that are "similar" to yours.

You can always sit down with the assessor and ask them for their comparisons. If you disagree with their comparisons, then you can appeal to the next step, in our state the Board of Equalization for the county. I would guess that your chances here depend on the quality of the assessor. If they know what they are doing, it's going to be hard for you to come up with better comparisons that convince the board that your valuation is better. For instance, my wife's valuations have been accepted over the property owner every single time in the last two years of appeals (about 40-50). Of course, she's also one of the few county assessors who is also a licensed appraiser.

If you lose before the Board of Equalization, you still have another option--you can appeal to the Superior Court. At this point there is a filing fee ($80?). My understanding is that the county attorneys do tend to settle a lot rather than go to court.

All said, it's going to take a lot of time and effort to argue an assessment that's close to the real value. If there are obvious mistakes, then you should absolutely appeal to have them corrected (make sure you file a return in order to do so). If you believe there is no way that you could sell the property for what the county's assessed value, then take that case to the assessor -- Chances are good that they will make the modifications if your numbers are reasonable. This is going to be the most likely course of action in this "down" market that we are currently seeing in most areas.

Regardless of what state you are in, now is probably the time to educate yourself on the process you need to follow next year to make sure your value is correct.

Comments

[Trinity85]

This is a question rather than a comment.

My wife and I purchased a house with a restrictive covenant. Specifically, one of its owners must be employed by the local university (Duke, in Durham, NC) or one of its associated hospitals. Because this leads to a smaller pool of potential buyers, we got the house at a good price for the neighborhood ($325K). However, it has just been appraised by Durham County at $411K. This is a fair price for a similar house in our neighborhood, but we would, of course, not be able to sell it at this price due to the restricted pool of buyers. My question: Is this grounds for an appeal? Thanks.

[FMF]

Trinity --

I think it would be a very good reason for an appeal because it certainly impacts the value of your home.

Anyone else with thoughts?

[Doug]

I asked my wife, the appraiser/assessor, about this -- She says she would absolutely take this into account since it greatly reduces the market size.

The fact that you just bought it at $325k also shows that that is the value that the market would sustain.

Are all homes in your subdivision under this covenant? Are there any other sales that could be used to compare?

Also just curious -- What happens if the owner leaves their position?

[vh]

File a return? Is this a federal law requiring counties to give taxpayers an opportunity to talk back?

We don't get any chance to file a "return." A few months before you get your tax bill, you get an assessment whose format is incomprehensible but which appears to have nothing to do with reality and which gives no hint to what the year's tax bill will be. When the tax bill finally comes, you have 30 days in which to contest it. But contesting it will likely get you nowhere: everyone I know who has tried that (myself included) simply wasted their time.

One friend, though, got a personal call from the county assessor saying a) "too bad, but no chance," and b) "my taxes went up, too--so sorry!"

The same friend discovered, shortly after he moved into the house in question, that the place had been hugely overvalued for years--that the assessor's office said it had a swimming pool (nonexistent) and more plumbing outlets than it does (they charge you by how many faucets you have, among other things). You don't find this out unless you ask for an itemized tax bill, which most people around here don't even know about. The elderly couple who sold the house to him, who were poor and needed the money, had no recourse: they had overpaid for three decades and so the money belonged to the county. Unfair? Toooo bad.

Is it any wonder why people vote against school taxes?

[C Peterson]

I had my property overvalued three years in a row. I went for a refund but instead of a refund I was urged by the property appraisers office to accept a credit towards my current taxes. My physical tax bill now reflects that credit but the appraised value has not been adjusted on the tax assessors website. Can you explain this?