Challenge Your Property Taxes – Taxes on your property are something you should challenge. It makes no sense in a down economy to not at the very least take a chance to lower your property taxes. Everyone is feeling the pinch from the unstable economy and we need to explore every way possible to trim the fat.
Our governments are going to tax and tax as much as they can, but sometimes this is unwarranted. In cases of your property taxes, it is a very good chance that you are being over taxed and should challenged your property taxes. You might be surprised at the outcome if you are able to lower your tax burden.
Challenge Your Property Taxes
Challenge Your Property Taxes
Most people are not familiar with how to challenge your property taxes. In fact, I am not even sure most people understand they are able to challenged their taxes, but they are. The fact that many people don’t do it is what these villages, cities, and towns are banking on as their continually raise your property taxes.
Today, we will take a look at the simple steps it takes to challenge your property taxes. You should note that you are able to do this yourself, but you can higher someone to do it for you. Just takes a little bit of time and the process is free.
The Steps to Challenge Your Property Taxes
1) Review Your Tax Bill – First on the menu, is to pull out your old tax bill to review it. You have to get familiar with what they already have on there. In fact, you want to concern yourself with two things. Find the assess value on your tax bill. Is it high? The real estate market has adjusted seriously over the past few years, which means the assessed value of your home might be too much.
The second thing you need to discover on the tax bill is the steps for challenging or disputing your tax bill. There are usually some key deadlines involved that you must be aware of. Take a look and identify them.
2) Supporting Documentation – You must do a bit of homework here. You need to get some facts that prove your property is not worth what they have it as the assessed value. This involves discovering the closed sales in your neighborhood. Make sure they are similar homes and recently sold. You need closed sales, not pending or active sales in this case.
You may need to contact a local real estate agent or even an appraiser to help you with this information. They may require a fee or be willing to assist you with homes of doing future business with you. It is worth a call. They will more than likely use the Multiple Listing Service to complete the research.
3) Closed Sales Comparison – You need to take time to compare the closed sales you found with your home. Note the price per square foot of the closed sales and compare them to your home.
From eHow: In other words, if a 2000 square foot house sold for $200,000, then it sold for $100 a square foot. Average the $/per square foot price for all the comparable sales that the Realtor provided for you. Multiply that amount times the square footage of your home. If your neighborhood homes have sold for an average of $100 a square foot, and your home contains 1900 square feet, then your home should be appraised for about $190,000. There will be some variation, of course.
Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_5351304_appeal-property-tax-assessment.html
There are a few more things you want to take a look at. Be sure to consider the amenities, number of bathrooms in the property, any fireplaces, or even the size of the lot. This may all seem foreign to you, but remember it is worth a shot to try and get your property taxes lowered.
4) Challenge the Property Taxes or Not – Now it is time to make a decision. You have to decide based on the research in front of you if you have a case or not. If property values have not significantly decreased, then it might not be worth the attempt, but if they have then you might have a case on your hands.
If you feel like you have a chance to successfully challenge your property taxes, then you should complete the paper work, attach your evidence and send the information to your assessor’s office.
5) Relax, It Is Out of Your Hands – The job of challenging your property taxes has been completed on your end. You have done your job, so you may as well relax. The information is now in the hands of a review board and this nothing more you can do. If they contact you for addition questions or evidence, just provide them the information you have wait for their decision.
If you take these steps to challenge your property taxes, I hope they work for you. We are a highly taxed country and most of it is due, but no one likes to over pay. When it comes to property taxes if you feel like you are paying more than you should, then you should definitely challenge the ruling. Best of luck to you! - Challenge Your Property Taxes
This is an awesome post! I have a suspicion that I’m paying too much on my property tax bill. I’ll have to take your advice.
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Go for it! It is worth a shot and free, just takes a bit of time, so definitely worth the attempt!
Ours have been bouncing around the last couple years. They go up and then they go down. We were just reassessed so I am hoping they stabilize for a while.
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