David P
Silver Member
Call a realtor and have him run some comparables to your home. This will give you an indication of what other homes sold for in your area. They can generate a list of home within a few minutes.
Taxable/Assessed Value Appeals
- Thread starter Parkanzky
- Start date
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Call a realtor and have him run some comparables to your home. This will give you an indication of what other homes sold for in your area. They can generate a list of home within a few minutes.
Gem99ultra
Elite Member
I believe you are entitled to an extension if needed. Go to the tax office now and face-to-face ask for more time.
I also have appealed my appraisals just about every year. I do go in prepared with comparable sales, pictures, etc. and usually get some sort of reduction. If you don't get satisfaction - do request an appeal. That's what they are there for. Once they raise your appraisal and you DON'T appeal, you probably will never get it back below the level that you are now. Give it all you've got - you have one chance, so make it good.
vtsnowedin
Elite Member
I am one of my towns "listers" (tax appraiser to everyone outside of Vermont). A few points from my side of this. One :Appraisers come and go and there is a good chance some of the people you are dealing with are new and still learning the job. Mistakes happen and if you point them out politely they are usually promptly corrected. If you threaten to sue over an error it gets peoples hackles up.
Two; Towns are appraised for a given year and those values stay in place for several years until the entire town is reappraised. Parcels that are changed or are built on are reappraised using the same price tables used when the rest of the town was last appraised which won't show the recent downturn in the market. This yearly update of changes is called maintenance of the grand list.
Three: We are not supposed to chase sales up or down. If you paid $300k for something the town has appraised for $200k you wouldn't want a "Welcome to the neighborhood" increase to $300K nor should you expect a $100K decrease if you bought it for $100K less.
Four: If a sale is way off from the current appraisal we do flag it and try to reinspect it under maintenance to see what has changed up or down. Sometimes interiors have been extensively redone to higher standards and in others elderly owners have deferred maintenance for decades. But those revisits are still done using the old town wide cost tables from the last full reappraisal.
Five: When we inspect a parcel and it's buildings we have a computer input sheet that takes in such things a sq. footage of basements and how much of a basement is finished or just a crawl space. there is also inputs for percent complete that accounts for an upstairs that is unfinished. Likewise on area heated or not or air conditioned. Porches decks inground pools, landscaping, garages with or without apartments above, Tractor barns and man caves. We have an input line for all of them and they all do either add or detract from the potential sales price.
And Six: Yes if you won't let us in and inspect it,all looks like mahogany and marble from the street.
Oh Nothing to lose? If you appeal to the state level in Vermont the State appraiser can go up or down from where the town had it. So If the beech houses on either side of you are selling for a lot more then the town has you in for I'd let it go, other then pointing out square footage and roofing type errors etc.
Two; Towns are appraised for a given year and those values stay in place for several years until the entire town is reappraised. Parcels that are changed or are built on are reappraised using the same price tables used when the rest of the town was last appraised which won't show the recent downturn in the market. This yearly update of changes is called maintenance of the grand list.
Three: We are not supposed to chase sales up or down. If you paid $300k for something the town has appraised for $200k you wouldn't want a "Welcome to the neighborhood" increase to $300K nor should you expect a $100K decrease if you bought it for $100K less.
Four: If a sale is way off from the current appraisal we do flag it and try to reinspect it under maintenance to see what has changed up or down. Sometimes interiors have been extensively redone to higher standards and in others elderly owners have deferred maintenance for decades. But those revisits are still done using the old town wide cost tables from the last full reappraisal.
Five: When we inspect a parcel and it's buildings we have a computer input sheet that takes in such things a sq. footage of basements and how much of a basement is finished or just a crawl space. there is also inputs for percent complete that accounts for an upstairs that is unfinished. Likewise on area heated or not or air conditioned. Porches decks inground pools, landscaping, garages with or without apartments above, Tractor barns and man caves. We have an input line for all of them and they all do either add or detract from the potential sales price.
And Six: Yes if you won't let us in and inspect it,all looks like mahogany and marble from the street.
Oh Nothing to lose? If you appeal to the state level in Vermont the State appraiser can go up or down from where the town had it. So If the beech houses on either side of you are selling for a lot more then the town has you in for I'd let it go, other then pointing out square footage and roofing type errors etc.
check
Elite Member
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- 2009 Kubota BX25
I have appealed my assessments on several occasions, and every single time I won. I remember one time in particular, the judge chastised the tax office representative for inappropriate valuation, saying that "you can't get any better indication of value than what the owner actually paid for it with multiple offers in an open market." Then he valued the property at exactly what I paid for it, which was a substantial reduction from what the government was saying it was worth.
Okay, maybe the term "multiple offers" was stretching it a bit, but there was another offer which died just before our offer came along.
Who says you can't fight City Hall?
Okay, maybe the term "multiple offers" was stretching it a bit, but there was another offer which died just before our offer came along.
Who says you can't fight City Hall?
TomSeller
Super Member
I just sold a house that I had on the market for 2 years where I had to drop the price to sell. Zillow has it now at almost twice what it sold for. On the other hand, it is almost dead even on the house I live in based on a comp that sold 2 months ago.
mjarrels
Elite Member
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- 1949 farmall, 1961 Fordson Dexta, 1986 Duetz Allis, 2001 Kubota.
This country is broke, states are broke, counties and cities are broke... good luck in getting a reduction. My county tax bill says disabled veterns get a tax break but getting in touch with some one in the tax office who knows anything about the program is impossible.
mark
mark
RedNeckGeek
Super Member
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Zillow is a laughing stock among the realtors I've worked with. They all hate it.
Comps are based on actual selling price, and realtor.com is the best place I've found for that info.
TCJatko
Platinum Member
Keep at it even if you can't make the deadline. There's always next year.
MinnesotaEric
Super Member
In my county property taxes go up 10-12% per year. Our property taxes are collected by the county Treasurer twice a year on May 15th, and October 15th. In order to fight the assessed value, one must sue the county and file suit before May 15th. In my case (although I've never taken advantage of this), since I'm legally disabled, I'm allowed to fill out a form the entitles me to lop off the first $50,000 of the assessed value of my primary residence.
The RE lake shore I purchased last year, I purchased at 2/3rds the assessed value. The reasons are many: with rural, undeveloped land, most banks will not lend against it. As a result, the "audience" for purchasing such land is limited to cash buyers only. A smart real estate broker will let clients know this. Moreover, in my special kind of township silliness, while the power tap for power from the city is 200 feet away, the real estate is zoned for the rural electrical company whose power tap is over 1/2 a mile away. The rural electrical company forces its clients to set up and negotiate electrical easements with surrounding land-owners, and will not allow landowners to dig their own trenches for electrical service, and instead bills them. Moreover, the poor SOB paying for all of this doesn't receive credit for extending line service if somebody else also taps into it. All to say that my electrical service is estimated to cost $64K to run in, plus legal costs and whatever else I must give two other land owners for securing an electrical easement and all at four times the monthly meter charge that the city power company charges.
Aware of that I paid 2/3rds less than the assessed value of the land and have not improved the land yet, my Tax Assessor jacked my 2015 property taxes up 11% over last year's inflated value.
Which means that when I move into the area permanently, I will be going through the process of contesting the assessed value of my new parcel and I've looked into the process, which the county has made hard.
It'll get worse, as soon as I change the lake shore from rural, undeveloped land to seasonal recreation (a zoning improvement to the land in order to subdivide), I expect my taxes will increase 8-fold. Minnesota is the second highest taxed state in the union.
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EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
When I built my house, the said that it was worth $100 a square foot and taxed me accordingly. I felt this was way too high, so I scheduled a meeting and went in to talk to them. I brought my floor plan and pictures of the interior and exterior. While talking to the guy, I got the impression that they just start out with a high number hoping that it's not challenged. If the person pays it, then they get more money. If you challenge it, the adjust it to a realistic amount fairly easily. I wanted it to be $50 a square foot, and after some discussion, we agreed to $60 a square foot. Every year it creeps up a little, but with my agriculture exemption on the land, I really can't complain paying $1,800 a year in property taxes for my house and 68 acres of land.
Eddie
Eddie