Property taxes have always been abused by local governments. Up and up they go, but homeowners have rarely really fought the rise since home prices were going through the roof. That’s obviously changed significantly in the last few years, but property taxes keep going on up. If that infuriates you, and it should, you should fight to have them lowered.
Ah, the good times. You could buy a home and watch it appreciate 15 to 25 percent a year. The good old days were here in a big way, but it couldn’t last and it didn’t. 2007, 2008 and 2009 all saw a huge correction in real estate as the bubble popped and prices plummeted. Despite the drop in value, property taxes in most places have remained the same or actually gone up! How can this be?
The first thing to understand is it is believed that roughly 60 percent of the home values used to establish property taxes are overvalued according to the National Taxpayer Union. This shouldn’t be a shocking number. It has been around for years, but homeowners rarely took action with prices going up since they could logically associate increased home values with increased property taxes. In fact, only 2 percent of homeowners with artificially high property taxes ever file an appeal!
Now that home prices have dropped dramatically, are homeowners waking up and fighting their excessive property taxes? Shockingly, the answer is no! A simple appeal on the appraisal value of practically any home in any market is going to show a drop of 20 to 40 percent compared to just two years ago. That is a huge readjustment and will slash the resulting property taxes. The question isn’t so much why should you file an appeal as why shouldn’t you?
Most Americans have been hurt badly financially over the last few years. This is particularly true of homeowners with many just struggling to stay afloat. In such a scenario, every dollar counts. This is why you need to seriously take a look at the value of your home used for the determination of property taxes. You will undoubtedly find it is reflective of home values prior to the crash, which means an appeal can save you big bucks.
Thomas Ajava is with the site
PropertyTaxLawyerDutchessCounty.com - where you can locate a property tax lawyer in Dutchess County to provide you with representation on property tax issues.
