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Property tax appeal

Jeff Fatt

Jeff Fatt

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Has anyone ever appealed their property tax assessment? I appealed mine and it was denied. Tomorrow is the hearing. I'm curious to know what to expect from anyone who has done this. I had an appraisal done in Nov, 2011 that came in about $55k less than the county appraised value (Fulton County, GA). I really don't see how a board that has never seen my house or been inside it can say that it's assessment of value is more accurate than a professional appraisal who walked through the house, the lot, compared comps in the neighborhood etc. I get the feeling this is a blanket denial system but I intend to fight this as I don't see how they can justify their number. Any suggestions? If I'm going to waste my day tomorrow I'd like to be successul in the appeal or if that isn't going to happen, at least have some fun with this.
 
My appeal was quite easy. It was assessed for 75k more than I felt the house was worth, so I just paid $50 to have a realtor come out and do an assessment. There were thousands of appeals in my county, so the realtors really racked up. They submitted all the paperwork and the tax value dropped like 60k. It was a real seamless process. I assume the professional appraiser submitted the necessary paperwork in your behalf?
 
Yes, I have the 25 page appraisal (that cost $400) which I submitted with original appeal that they denied with no explanation or reason.
 
I appealed twice when Forsyth jacked up my value during the 2008+ downturn while the sale value was dropping. The response was basically "no we are correct". I offered to let them buy it from me for a 10% discount of their assessed value.
 
That blows. I suppose they're just hurting for money so bad that they'll deny anything. Showing up in person will prove to them that you mean business, and might sway them. Good luck to you. Our appraisal was done the summer after I finished building the house, and was a good 100k more than I paid to build it. We're up for a reassessment again this year, which I'm not looking forward to.
 
When I bought the house I was going to try to appeal the value but it states clearly that it cannot be appealed because of change of value and that to appeal there must be structural damage, change in size, etc. So I had to wait for the revaluation which came back high and I then appealed and won based on comps from houses sold (next door specifically) and the price I paid for the house. It was fairly easy but only because the values had just come out. I would have lost had I appealed earlier.
 
If you don't like the result of your appeal at the county level, you can always appeal to the state tax commission.
 
I appealed mine on 2 pieces of property that I won and won both times. You have to have evidence that you are being done wrong. They had my house assessed at 285K for 2495 sq ft while my neighbor was assessed at 161K for 3800 sq ft. There were several other instances like this down the street so it was a slam dunk. The other was an instance where farm land had been changed to residential land since it was handed down to me by a dying relative. This was a little trickier but I managed to get it changed back. I got a little lucky here.
 
You should also plot where the comps are relative to your house. In my neighborhood, there have been only a couple of sales in the last 5 years so one appraiser was using comps from over 10 miles away. Ridiculous.
 
Good luck with the hearing. I would think having more than 1 appraisal would help, but that gets pricey.

In City of Atlanta they are required to re-assess every 3-5 years I believe. So depending on your last re-assessment, you will still have that review available.

Mine were re-assessed down last year.
 
I just looked up some of my neighbors. Two of my neighbors appraised values dropped by ~$50k last year. I'm one of the crappier houses on the street and my appraised value (per the county) is higher than most of my neighbors. If I lose this hearing tomorrow, those of you in Atlanta can watch for me on the news because I am going to go apeshit.
 
"And at the 5 o' clock broadcast, Wiggles gone wild!"
 
Jeff Fatt said:
Has anyone ever appealed their property tax assessment? I appealed mine and it was denied. Tomorrow is the hearing. I'm curious to know what to expect from anyone who has done this. I had an appraisal done in Nov, 2011 that came in about $55k less than the county appraised value (Fulton County, GA). I really don't see how a board that has never seen my house or been inside it can say that it's assessment of value is more accurate than a professional appraisal who walked through the house, the lot, compared comps in the neighborhood etc. I get the feeling this is a blanket denial system but I intend to fight this as I don't see how they can justify their number. Any suggestions? If I'm going to waste my day tomorrow I'd like to be successul in the appeal or if that isn't going to happen, at least have some fun with this.
Click to expand...

IIRC, you're in charlotte, right?

i bought my house 2 years ago. about 1 year before the tax reassessment was done. what they said my value was came in higher than what i paid for it (there had been 3 other sales in my neighborhood in the same relative time frame, mine was the only one where the tax property value was assessed higher than the transaction price). i appealed, and they came down a bit (i had argued that the transaction price gave a valid assessment of what the fair market value was, and therefore what the tax value should be), but not quite all the way there. i decided it wasn't worth it to argue anymore and just accepted that new number.

my boss, on the other hand, let the entire process play out, all the way to the hearing. i think for him it was more the principle of the matter than anything else. and it played out how we expected it to...the hearing was pretty easy. i think he more or less just repeated everything he had already submitted. there were SO many people who appealed that i think their knee-jerk reaction was just to deny deny deny, and then see who cared enough to continue pursuing it. i'm assuming that since you've already gotten to this point, you've got a pretty good set of information to make your case. just bring it all and make the same argument again.


eta: just saw that you're in atlanta. not sure if it's the same. but good luck!
 
Jeff Fatt said:
I just looked up some of my neighbors. Two of my neighbors appraised values dropped by ~$50k last year. I'm one of the crappier houses on the street and my appraised value (per the county) is higher than most of my neighbors. If I lose this hearing tomorrow, those of you in Atlanta can watch for me on the news because I am going to go apeshit.
Click to expand...

I doubt you have a gsccca membership to pull warranty deeds online (transfer tax indicates sale price) to match up with the tax values, but definitely go to the assessors website and print off all of the nicer houses on your street with lower assessed values. If you have time, use those parcel numbers and go down to the real estate clerk of court records room tommorrow morning before the hearing. If you can match up deeds with higher sales prices with corresponding lower assessments on your street that may give you some traction.
 
Hoops,

In Mecklenburg County, the informal review is performed by the assessor's office staff who came up with the original value on the property. The Board of Equalization and Review is an independent appointed board of qualified citizens who hear appeals beyond the informal stage. The county assessor may actually be asked to defend his value before the board and has certainly forwarded his materials wrt every case. If you're still not happy with the value after the BER decision, you appeal to the Property Tax Commission in Raleigh. It sounds like you accepted the value from the informal appeal and your boss went to the BER.
 
Metro Area February 2012 Level Monthly Change Annual Change

Atlanta 83.29 -2.5% -17.3%
Boston 146.23 -1.1% -2.4%
Charlotte 108.13 -0.4% -1.8%
Chicago 105.39 -2.5% -6.9%
Cleveland 94.14 -1.7% -4.4%
Dallas 112.67 0.0% -1.0%
Denver 121.81 -0.9% 0.5%
Detroit 68.60 -1.3% 1.5%
Las Vegas 89.89 -0.4% -8.5%
Los Angeles 159.49 -0.8% -5.2%
Miami 139.49 0.6% 0.8%
Minneapolis 110.16 -1.0% 0.4%
New York 159.58 -0.8% -3.0%
Phoenix 104.12 1.2% 3.3%
Portland 129.60 -0.3% -3.0%
San Diego 149.07 0.2% -3.9%
San Francisco 124.64 -0.7% -4.1%
Seattle 128.99 -0.8% -2.9%
Tampa 123.91 - 0.2% -2.9%
Washington 175.74 -0.8% -2.3%
 
TheTwinAndreBen said:
I doubt you have a gsccca membership to pull warranty deeds online (transfer tax indicates sale price) to match up with the tax values, but definitely go to the assessors website and print off all of the nicer houses on your street with lower assessed values. If you have time, use those parcel numbers and go down to the real estate clerk of court records room tommorrow morning before the hearing. If you can match up deeds with higher sales prices with corresponding lower assessments on your street that may give you some traction.
Click to expand...

I think it would be a lot easier to just look up the properties on the Fulton County Assessors page. Just search on your street name and you can pull up every house on the street. The property card will have the current assessment, sketch of the floor plan, site information, any prior sales, sale price, and Deed Book & Page.
 
HeavyPetter said:
I think it would be a lot easier to just look up the properties on the Fulton County Assessors page. Just search on your street name and you can pull up every house on the street. The property card will have the current assessment, sketch of the floor plan, site information, any prior sales, sale price, and Deed Book & Page.
Click to expand...

Right, the tax assessor site can show that houses on your street have lower assessments. That gets you half way there. If you can then accompany that with deed records showing that those same houses that have lower assessments were also purchased for more money than yours, it completes the argument.
 
TheTwinAndreBen said:
Right, the tax assessor site can show that houses on your street have lower assessments. That gets you half way there. If you can then accompany that with deed records showing that those same houses that have lower assessments were also purchased for more money than yours, it completes the argument.
Click to expand...

That same info is available on the tax assessors site. Sale price, date of sale, DB/P, along with the current assessment of the property so you can compare sale price with assessment if that's your goal.

I would set up a spreadsheet with all of the sales of similar homes (bed and bath count), show what they sold for on a $/sf basis and how they're assessed on a $/sf basis, and compare that to my home's assessment and look for inequities. There are only so many ways to do a mass appraisal.
 
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