If you are like most of us,
your property taxes have probably been
increasing. The taxes
you pay on your house are calculated by
multiplying the assessed value of your
property by a tax rate. The tax rate is
determined by the Assessor's office after
your municipality (city or county)
determines the total amount of money that it
needs in that year's budget. You can't
easily affect the rate without legislation
as it is pretty much determined by various
government agencies (parks, schools, etc.)
run by the politicians whom you elect. You
can make sure however that the assessed
value of your house has been correctly
estimated.
The Assessor has an enormous
job of trying to make sure everyone is fairly assessed. They
actually do a pretty good job. But as you can imagine, they
certainly can't take a close look at every property. They
rely on increasing your property's assessed value by
applying an appreciation factor to it.
The assessed value of your property
is suppose to be a portion of its fair market
value. Unfortunately there are thousands of properties
whose fair market values have been
incorrectly estimated by the Assessor's
office. When was the last time the Assessor
actually inspected the interior of your property? Could
easily have been 15-20 years in most cases. That means that you could be paying
more than your fair share of property taxes.
We can assist you by developing an appraisal
for your property using current data so that
you can have an estimate of market value
prepared by someone other than your
Assessor. This appraisal can help you
considerably with a tax appeal. A
reduction in property taxes usually pays for our fee many
times over.
Additionally, sometimes the
Assessor's property data card contains
incorrect information on your property.
Perhaps the gross living area of your house
has been incorrectly calculated. Or, maybe
its shows that you have a deck or some other
improvement that doesn't exist now. We can
provide accurate information in the
appraisal so your Assessor can correct your property data. In fairness to the Assessor, we
certainly have an advantage because you can
hire us specifically to get a current "look"
at your property. Take advantage of that
factor.
