Higher tax assessment?

Richard · Apr 22, 2009

I just got my tax assessemnt from the county yesterday. It's not TOO bad I must admit however on the principle of it, I found it a bit interesting/irritating.

Seems my property value has gone UP about 12%

There was a phone number to call about questions, so I did. The chap on the phone was VERY nice during the call. His contention (the county's philosophical stance) is, this was done 5 years ago and using that as a baseline, most properties in the county were 100% (begining value 5 years ago) and went up to say, 150%. They've not done these assessments for 5 years and now, the real estate decline has put the value of my place at 112%.

He sure made that sound all interesting. He then said they got this number from comps "in my area". Well... I live 18 miles away from town, we're on the end of a dead end road. surrounded by 250 acres here, another say, 500 acres that TVA owns, another 200 acre farm, another 50 acre location... there have been nothing 'around' me at all that has sold in the last 10 years!

He then went to say the county did a county wide survey and in fact, had not even been out to look at any of the properties. (in other words, they sat at their desk and came up with some numbers, if you want my opinion!)

Here is what I found interesting...

Although my assessment went UP, my tax RATE will go down, therefore, my actual tax bill, will stay the same.

I smell something fishy here.

He re-explained it, telling me there is some kind of law that says they can not raise my taxes any more this year, than last year based on this thing so if my value goes up, my rate must go down, such that my tax stays the same.

1. Then why bother?
2. I still smell something fishy here, after all, we ARE talking about "them"

So, I then go to pre-warn him that I'm a bit cynical when it comes to the government and taxes.... (he chuckled in quiet agreement with me, saying he understood)

anyways, I then said... "what is to keep the county from raising my value this year, lowering my rate so they can claim "I'm not paying any more taxes than I did LAST year".... "only to then bump my rates up NEXT year?"

His answer is, (with more chuckle in his voice, of understanding my point) there was nothing to suggest that wouldn't happen.

so, in other words, this COULD be a sugar coated way for the politicians who want to net, raise my taxes, have a back door way to do it while also trying to garner points by telling me that 'nothing will happen to me this year because of this change"??

He agreed.

by the time I hung up, I was actually liking this guy. He is either a smooooooooooooooooooth operator in city hall or perhaps, he's simply an honest citizen who's working there who also understands/sees some of the trickery for taxes the powers that be, try to pull over on us.

Seems I can go challange this although I have ONE week to log my complaint.

My neighbor (who is developing 45 acres and built a 10,000 sq/ft home on his plot but has YET to sell a single lot to someone else) just got his assessment. They raised him all over the place too.

He called like I did...he also made it down to start the challange process.

He has some lots he's trying to sell for $300,000. He feels they are over priced and he wants it that way... he figures if someone comes in and pays the piper, he'll sell... if they recognize he's over priced and they want to haggle... he's now in the drivers seat. Meaning, if he likes them and WANTS them as his neighbor, he will haggle... if he doesn't think he'd like them as neighbors, he won't budge on his price.

He's not sold a SINGLE lot yet. He pointed this out to City Hall. their response back was they'd probably consider dropping his rate back down a bit. They also 'warned' him that they're doing this since in fact, he's not sold a single tract of land. If he WERE to sell a tract of land say, tomorrow, (let's say at $200,000/acre) then they'd feel compelled to re-evaluate his entire 45 acres since they would then have an accurate up to date value on his land.

I can't decide if it's worth going down to haggle with them over 12% increase or not. Unknown to them, we've been finishing out the basement and are currently adding on to the kitchen and room underneith as well as a fairly large wrap around porch. It's probably not unreasonable that this alone has added 75% of the 12% to the value....

what to do, what to do....

Richard · Apr 22, 2009

I say 'unknown to them' about the addition. We have permits and have had inspectors out... I just presume they haven't given every single household that had a permit a specific look-see to see how the permit has changed the value of the house. I don't really know either way.

dmccarty · Apr 22, 2009

Richard,

Be happy it is only a 12% increase.

When we bought our land we checked its valuation and tax. The land was valued somewhere around $2500 an acre. We bought towards the end of a seven year valuation cycle....

At the end of the cycle a lot to our front sold for 20,000 an acre.

During the next valuation our land value jumped quite a bit!

The new tax on our land was such that we might very well have had to sell land to pay the tax bill. Which is rather ironic since so much of the county is against growth and our land is ready to grow houses.

I went through the process with the county to lower the valuation but it did not amount to much. I could argue and did argue that the land that sold for 20K an acre was a two acre lot while our land is in 5 acre lots. This helped just a bit.

But not much.

What saved us was that we had timbered some of our land so I could get a timber valuation which drastically lowered our taxes.

Regarding appraisals. When we built the house the land had to be appraised for the loan. The ding bat appraiser had no clue on how to valuation land. They tried to value our land at 6K an acre which we knew was not even close given the previous 20K sale. The appraiser was replaced.

Our house had to be appraised when it was completed. The house is a single story with full brick and lot of other details that are not easy to find comparables. What was funny is that one of the comparables was a two story log home. I happened to know the people who owned that house.

No way was my house and their house comparable.

Most of the appraisers we have delt with have not impressed me much. The last one we used WAS very knowledgeable.

Property taxes are evil. The government has simply taken my property and charges me rent. Its not really ours. If I loose my job and can't pay the tax on the land I own, the government takes it. I just rent the land even though I paid for it.

Later,
Dan

Bird · Apr 22, 2009

I bought my house in 2005 for 1.46% less than the tax appraised value. For 2006, they lowered the appraisal .56% so the appraisal was still a little more than I paid for the place. In 2007, they raised the appraisal 2.13%. All the changes were small enough that I wasn't concerned about them. But then for 2008, they raised the appraisal 9.55% at a time when home sales were down, prices were down, foreclosures were up, etc. So I did go, in person, to talk to an appraisor; a very pleasant young lady who promptly not only did away with the increase, but actually changed the appraisal 2.07% lower than it was in 2007; 10.61% lower than if I'd just ignored it. So, taking the time to go talk to them and plead your case sometimes works (and sometimes doesn't).

And I won't get my preliminary appraisal for this year until sometime next month.

And I had mixed feelings about responding to this thread, because I'm afraid it's a political topic, so if one of the other moderators wants to remove it . . . . well, won't be the first mistake I've made.

Richard · Apr 22, 2009

well, I didn't intend for it to be a political thread as much as a tax thread...(is there a difference?

)

If it is felt that this crosses the line and needs to be deleted, I'm ok with that.

Wis Bang · Apr 22, 2009

Here in NJ the state has been on the townships to re-evaluate because it has been so long since the last ones. Of course they were using sales values from just b/4 the housing downturn and almost everyone is apealing.

The state wants it done every ten years so the valuations even out. A house that hasn't sold in 30 years would, otherwise, still be on the tax rolls at under $100K while it is now worth $300K. Problem was last year they were selling for $450K so everyone is apealing...

dooleysm · Apr 22, 2009

I understand the local officials' dilema. Around here there is all kinds of talk about property tax reform, whether capping the tax rate, doing away with property taxes, etc. etc. I believe they passed a law capping the property tax rate at 1%, or something along those lines. I don't think there was anything in the law regarding assessments though, which are left up to each county's assessor. The money still has to come from somewhere, because the state government sure isn't expecting the counties to contribute less money.

So the county officials are handcuffed by the state government. The state politicians get to look like heros while the county assessors look like jerks for seemingly invalid appraisals.

A similar thing happened when our governor pushed through statewide observance of DST a few years ago. He got his bill passed and then washed his hands of it. He left it to each county's administrative wing to choose between Eastern and Central time. It was a HUGE headache around our county, with the residents pretty well evenly split between which one they wanted. A real no-win for the county council, all because the state government passed a bill.

Bird · Apr 22, 2009

I think Texas state law requires adjustments, or re-appraisal, at least once every 3 years, but then it's up to the counties to decide whether they want to do it every year (as is the case with my county), every 2 years, or every 3 years. And they are only limited to increase the valuation by the cost of any improvements, plus 10% per year. So if you're in one of those counties that only does it every 3 years, your appraised value can jump as much as 30% at a time.

tallyho8 · Apr 22, 2009

They just reassessed all the properties in or area as they do every few years. The different taxing entities (School board, sheriffs office, drainage, etc) are not required by law to lower their rates so the taxes stay the same, but they are "requested" to do so. Naturally, most of them do not lower their rates, so our taxes rise each reassessment without us even getting to vote on the higher taxes.