This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 12:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Site Search:
March 21, 2007
How to Lower Your Property Taxes For Less Than a Dollar
Depending on where you live, you will usually receive a letter from the county assessors office towards the end of the year detailing the assessed value of your home. Unsurprisingly, these values almost never decline. This can lead to you paying thousands of dollars in taxes for an overvalued home.
Thankfully there exists a method for resolving inflated taxes. This can often be done for less than a dollar and can save you a small fortune. Here’s how:
First off you’re going to need evidence that your home is overinflated. The best proof is an appraisal performed by a certified appraiser. Try calling around to find an appraiser who will cut you a deal. Often you can find ones that will give heavy discounts if you let them know you just need something fast and simple to present as a property tax appeal.
If you don’t want to spend the $250 or so for an appraisal to be done, try calling a local real estate office. Ask for a CMA (competitive Market Assessment) to be done on your home. Never pay for this to be done. It takes an agent less than a minute to enter your home into their CMA analysis program, and most offices are happy to do it. Some may insist you come into their office to get one done. That’s fine, but don’t sign anything. We just want a CMA.
If you for some reason cannot find an agent, or an appraiser, you can prepare a CMA of your own. What you want to do is compile a brief list of 3 or 4 homes which have recently sold in your area that are similar to yours. Zillow.com can greatly assist in this, or you can take a look at your County Assessor’s website and find out what similar homes are going for.
If nothing else, you can gather some for-sale fliers from local listings and use those as your comparables. Just remember, the more evidence the better.
Once you’ve compiled your evidence, I would suggest taking your information with you and going down to your local assessor’s office. You can mail it in, but it’s much harder for them to say no if it’s in person than it is for them to send out a denial letter. If you do get a denial letter, I’d recommend going into the office and trying again in person.
Whether writing in or presenting in person, you will want to be brief. The less you say the better. Dress well, be polite, and DO NOT do anything more than say “I wish to appeal/dispute my assessed value.”
Present your evidence, be brief when answering any questions and don’t be argumentative. If you don’t get anywhere, try again another day with another clerk/assessor. If that fails you can always appeal at a higher level. Keep in mind that if you have enough evidence and are polite you will almost always succeed.
Find out if your local office has a manager or some degree of appeals. They will direct you accordingly. At this point you may want to consider getting an attorney willing to work for a portion of the saved taxes if they succeed. Chances are you won’t have things get that far. Just remember, you CAN win an appeal.
read comments (0)