Taxable/Assessed Value Appeals

[David P]

I can't do anything outside of the formal appeal process because I don't have time. The appeals have to be submitted by Thursday, which doesn't give me a chance to talk to anybody in advance to resolve this.

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]

I can't do anything outside of the formal appeal process because I don't have time. The appeals have to be submitted by Thursday, which doesn't give me a chance to talk to anybody in advance to resolve this.

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]

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.

 

[check]

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?

 

[TomSeller]

Try this - Type in your address here and get comps here. It's something any way.

Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgage & Home Values in the US

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]

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

 

[RedNeckGeek]

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.

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]

I can't do anything outside of the formal appeal process because I don't have time. The appeals have to be submitted by Thursday, which doesn't give me a chance to talk to anybody in advance to resolve this.

Keep at it even if you can't make the deadline. There's always next year.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

We got our new assessment from the township and they've made a big increase to our assessed and taxable values. We just purchased this home in August, so I expected a new assessment, but I didn't expect it to be for considerably more than we paid for the house.

Has anyone done an assessment appeal before? I'm working on the L-4035 appeal form. I understand that assessed values don't necessarily follow sales prices and I've started a short list of comparable sales to help make my case.

Anybody have any wisdom/experience they can share? I'll take any advice I can get.

What a pain!

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.

 

[EddieWalker]

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

 

[MinnesotaEric]

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.

Here is the deal: companies like Zillow represent a threat to realtors (I'm a licensed MN Real Estate Broker) because the number one thing that realtors do and the only way to justify the broker's commission is to drive traffic to your listing. But Zillow drives traffic and realtors must pay Zillow to get the leads from Zillow. The busier the realtor, the more money that one realtor can afford to pay and the more local traffic Zillow will provide that realtor. But if you do not have a zillion sales, you cannot afford to pay Zillow for leads and so you talk smack about Zillow as being bad to clients.

Personally, more power to Zillow. It is slowly providing better and better data and the only reason it cannot get MLS data is that Realtor Associations are fighting companies like Zillow at every corner.

And why would Realtor Associations do that? Because they are privately owned money printers.

I'll give you an example: in order for me to list anything on a MLS (to drive traffic and hopefully improve the chances of selling), I must first pay about $750 a year to the Minnesota Association of Realtors (MARS). Then I can pay an additional $120 every two months for access to the MLS. So over the course of a year, every broker and active real estate agent must be a member of MARS and must pay the access fee. Thus the Association receives over a grand a year from every realtor and broker.

It is like printing money.

As a broker, I do not need to join the association, but if I want to drive traffic from my local real estate pros, I need to list on the MLS and to get there, I must pay and pay.

So more power to companies like Zillow.

 

[TomSeller]

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

Wow. Nice.

 

[NorTracNY]

God bless you. I've been through the process twice with my place. I have no advice other than be prepared to sue if you really want it reduced. We had two different town assessors with the attitude, of "I don't care about fairness. I only care about winning a fight with you to reduce the assessed value." The first one just said, "That's what the computer says, so that's your assessment." They are required to supply you with 3 comparables. Both times, the comparables they supplied were assessed for about half what they were looking to assess us at. I guess I don't know what the word comparable means. In both cases we won, but suing was required. Good luck....

 

[charlz]

Maybe zillow is slowly getting better but I read this article not too long ago about how far off it can be in some areas.

LA Times

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Here is the deal: companies like Zillow represent a threat to realtors (I'm a licensed MN Real Estate Broker) because the number one thing that realtors do and the only way to justify the broker's commission is to drive traffic to your listing. But Zillow drives traffic and realtors must pay Zillow to get the leads from Zillow. The busier the realtor, the more money that one realtor can afford to pay and the more local traffic Zillow will provide that realtor. But if you do not have a zillion sales, you cannot afford to pay Zillow for leads and so you talk smack about Zillow as being bad to clients.

For the scenario outlined above to work, Zillow would somehow have to present listings that are not on the MLS, yet every listing I see on Zillow has an associated MLS number. I'm just a guy that's bought and sold a few houses in the last ten years, and I HATE Zillow because the listings I see on Zillow are often incomplete, have inaccurate info, and the Zestimate very seldom reflects actual market conditions. When ever I want the best info for a house, I go to the listing agent's web site. They're the only ones with hand/eyes on experience with the property. Most people shopping for houses know this, and use many real estate web sites as a result. I've found that the best web sites are maintained by agents in the same locality as the house being listed, not the nation wide sites like realtor.com or zillow.

In my experience, pushing customers to a sale is a given for any realtor. Really good realtors smoothly deal with issues that invariably come up during the transaction, promptly return email and phone calls, keep appointments, and pull in trustworthy and reliable repair people when needed. The BEST realtors earn their commission by negotiating a deal that is the best available for their client, and THAT's what makes them worth their commission.

Zillow and similar Internet services can never perform those functions, and a good agent should never feel threatened by them.

 

[Parkanzky]

Maybe zillow is slowly getting better but I read this article not too long ago about how far off it can be in some areas.

LA Times

I agree that their estimates are basically worthless. But you can also show recent sales on the map, so it's a nice way to gather comps.

 

[Parkanzky]

For the scenario outlined above to work, Zillow would somehow have to present listings that are not on the MLS, yet every listing I see on Zillow has an associated MLS number. I'm just a guy that's bought and sold a few houses in the last ten years, and I HATE Zillow because the listings I see on Zillow are often incomplete, have inaccurate info, and the Zestimate very seldom reflects actual market conditions. When ever I want the best info for a house, I go to the listing agent's web site. They're the only ones with hand/eyes on experience with the property. Most people shopping for houses know this, and use many real estate web sites as a result. I've found that the best web sites are maintained by agents in the same locality as the house being listed, not the nation wide sites like realtor.com or zillow.

In my experience, pushing customers to a sale is a given for any realtor. Really good realtors smoothly deal with issues that invariably come up during the transaction, promptly return email and phone calls, keep appointments, and pull in trustworthy and reliable repair people when needed. The BEST realtors earn their commission by negotiating a deal that is the best available for their client, and THAT's what makes them worth their commission.

Zillow and similar Internet services can never perform those functions, and a good agent should never feel threatened by them.

We purchased our current home through what Zillow calls a "Make Me Move" listing. The sellers did not have an agent and the home was not on the MLS.

We worked with a couple of Realtors over the course of our most recent home search. We had very specific wants and looked on and off for a couple years.

We never seriously looked at a house that a realtor found for us. Anytime a realtor took us to a home, it wouldn't meet at least a couple of our criteria. I'm really disillusioned by the real-estate process. I feel like more open access to the MLS system and some clever third-party entrepreneurs could really turn the system around. Photographers to handle the pictures, a service to handle the showings, and someone to fill out the paperwork shouldn't cost 7%.

 

[orezok]

In 1978 California voters passed Proposition 13 which limited property taxes. The property is assessed at the sales price for the property and can only be increased by 2% per year. If you bought your house in say 1979, that is your assessed value plus the 2% per year increase. It stays locked. Nice huh?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

In 1978 California voters passed Proposition 13 which limited property taxes. The property is assessed at the sales price for the property and can only be increased by 2% per year. If you bought your house in say 1979, that is your assessed value plus the 2% per year increase. It stays locked. Nice huh?

That's not how it worked when I purchased this home in CA in '10. The assessed price was what ever the assessor felt it was worth. I had to appeal the assessment to get it down to the actual selling price. Now they're increasing the value each year, but have stayed under the 2% limit so far.

Seems like there are attempts to repeal Prop 13 every year, and I'm happy that they've been unsuccessful. I don't see how people on a fixed income can hang onto their homes in a rising property tax environment.

 

[orezok]

That's not how it worked when I purchased this home in CA in '10. The assessed price was what ever the assessor felt it was worth. I had to appeal the assessment to get it down to the actual selling price. Now they're increasing the value each year, but have stayed under the 2% limit so far.

Seems like there are attempts to repeal Prop 13 every year, and I'm happy that they've been unsuccessful. I don't see how people on a fixed income can hang onto their homes in a rising property tax environment.

Sounds like you assessor violated the law. You should notify the District Attorney and local news media. They like this kind of story and it could help a lot of people.