Property Taxes

[Bird]

I also live in Indiana and we couldn't have a worse assessor. I can't recall if I mentioned it in this thread, but I bought a rent house last year for $64k. I just got my property tax bill for that home. My bill was based on a value of $98,800. My understanding is that your property in IN is supposed to be based on actual value. Paying taxes for last year, which is what this bill is for, how can they be so dumb as to miss the value by that much especially when it shows right on the assessment what I paid for the home?!??

They obviously think you got a real bargain.:laughing: I once had a house appraised at 94k in Dallas. I was trying to sell it at the time. I contested the appraisal, even went before the appeal board and got it down to 88k and sold it for 77k.

 

[jinman]

They obviously think you got a real bargain.:laughing: I once had a house appraised at 94k in Dallas. I was trying to sell it at the time. I contested the appraisal, even went before the appeal board and got it down to 88k and sold it for 77k.

I probably will not be very popular with my neighbors because I just sold a piece of property for over $20k above assessed value. That means the appraiser will reevaluate everyone else in this area based on my sale. Oh well. . . .

 

[MossRoad]

Just a word of caution about changing the classification of your land to save on Property taxes...Here in Ga. we have a conservation reserve program you can place your property in and save a great deal on your property taxes for a period of 10 yrs. and then it is up for renewal Here is the warning, at least here in Georgia if you sell your property during the time it is in reserve or otherwise withdram it from the program you have to pay a penalty and pay back all of the property taxes you saved and believe me it is a substantial amount. You want to be absolutely sure about your plans before you enter a program like this if your state is the same.

Yep. That's very similar to Indiana. 10yrs.

 

[MossRoad]

They obviously think you got a real bargain.:laughing: I once had a house appraised at 94k in Dallas. I was trying to sell it at the time. I contested the appraisal, even went before the appeal board and got it down to 88k and sold it for 77k.

The appraised price and the purchase price are not the same.

My wife's grandma's house appraised for over 60K. It was on the market for 2 years, only had one person look at it and it was sold for 30K. :confused2: The new owner will be paying property taxes based on the 60k appraisal, not the 30K selling price unless she has it reassessed herself.

 

[MossRoad]

I probably will not be very popular with my neighbors because I just sold a piece of property for over $20k above assessed value. That means the appraiser will reevaluate everyone else in this area based on my sale. Oh well. . . .

Not necessarily... the appraiser will look at like properties in the area. For instance, we had our house reappraised a few months ago for two reasons:
1. I wanted to make sure the house appraised at what the county said it is worth for property taxes.
2. Our home equity loan was up and we wanted a new one.

The appraiser had to find three like properties. We live in a neighborhood with 1/4 acre lots. However, ours is over 1 acre (four lots and a road that was never built). He had to go a mile in two directions to find a house with similar traits. Most houses in our neighborhood go for about 15K less than ours. The one two doors over went for 17K.

And our property taxes went DOWN this year even though the house appraised at 20K more than last year. :confused2:

 

[PILOON]

As pres of our owners association, a few years back, I got a call from an irate owner.
He purchased a property for $50K that was evaluated for taxes at $25K.
He wanted me to interfere and get his taxes lowered.

My response was rather negative as I told him that the evaluations were based on selling history in the area and that thanks to him the city would start considering that all similar properties would then be worth 50% more than they had evaluated.

That is exactly what then occured the next year, not exactly his 50% ratio, but a considerable raise however.

Funny but one sale like the above example causes increases, but if 10 sell below evaluation, taxes don't come down.
But then for those that can remember that far back, taxes were only a wartime tempory measure to pay off WW2 costs.

 

[bdeboer]

I'm not sure on zoning. I don't have ag income, I sell a bit at the farmers market, but not enough to bother with reporting. It's mostly for personal use/consumption. I'm still going to fight it out with them.

Over 10 acres in Ohio the income reporting is optional, not sure about Indiana

 

[2manyrocks]

They obviously think you got a real bargain.:laughing: I once had a house appraised at 94k in Dallas. I was trying to sell it at the time. I contested the appraisal, even went before the appeal board and got it down to 88k and sold it for 77k.

I had to review the property taxes on a property in a county some distance from me. The property had recently sold for something like $140,000, but the tax assessor had it appraised at $100,000, and so I asked the assessor to explain it because I wasn't familiar with the property and wanted to know why it didn't appraise for the actual sales price. Actual sales price is supposed to be the best evidence of value, isn't it?

Well, the assessor tells me that Tennessee has a program where it computes what the value is and the local assessor was only following the state's calculations. So I ask why the state calculation overrides actual sales price? I didn't get a good answer. I should have asked why there is even a local property assessor if all she is doing is taking the state's figures for the property in her county. It wasn't my property and not my fight, so I didn't dig into it any more.

 

[txdon]

The appraised price and the purchase price are not the same.

My wife's grandma's house appraised for over 60K. It was on the market for 2 years, only had one person look at it and it was sold for 30K. :confused2: The new owner will be paying property taxes based on the 60k appraisal, not the 30K selling price unless she has it reassessed herself.

In Texas the form of taxation is an ad valorem tax which relies upon the fair market value of the property being taxed for justification. I have won three protest because I had found like properties that sold for less. Sales trump appraisers at protest hearings in Texas.

 

[dooleysm]

Here's how I've come to look at it. Nobody goes to school to learn to be an assessor. This is an elected position, at least at the county level. In this area anyway, that means that a Democrat is probably going to win the office. From what I've seen, the people elected to county offices come from other offices. There's probably some hierarchy that I'm not familiar with, but it's along the lines of, you get an entry level job at the courthouse, work as say the court clerk for a couple years, then run for an office when there's a vacancy, say assessor, then work your way up the chain.

So what I'm saying is, I have little confidence that county officials know all the ins and outs of their office. I'm not saying they are not capable, but it's my guess that the current assessor is not in her position because she fell in love with the idea of assessing property, went to school to learn how to be an assessor, then planned a strategy to be the Dubois county assessor. My guess is she saw a vacancy at the county level, ran for it, and won, and she'll probably move on if and when a higher level opportunity presents itself.

I don't expect that she knows substantially more about my particular situation than I can learn from reading online. I'm also not willing to take her word on what is and isn't 'law', unless she can provide proof.

Note that this is all speculation on my part.