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Mon 3 Jan, 2005 10:45 am
How does the City determine property assessed value? Do homeowners have any way to lower an assessed value when it is obvious that it is hugely overstated? The ironic thing is, there was an article in the paper this weekend talking about how our esteemed mayor has lowered our property taxes. My real estate tax bill came in the mail the other day. I noticed with horror that my property value was significantly more than what I could probably sell my place for - almost $100,000 more. The reason I know this is that I live in a condo association and no condo in my complex even the largest with all the bells and whistles have sold for over $400,000. My condo is not even the largest in size and number of rooms and does not come with a garage and does not have the most up-to-date amenities. Suddenly, my condo is now worth significantly over $400,000. Another condo owner, one with the highest value, was assessed at almost $500,000! It seems the Board of Assessors simply took the last sales price and added $100,000 to everyone's value.
I have left a message at the Board of Assessors, but wonder if I will even hear from them. All it said on the bill was if you have questions on the valuation you should contact the Board of Assessors. Any thoughts?
You also should send a letter to the county assessor
with copies of recent sales and a professional estimator's
assessment of your property. Based on these figures,
they have no choice but lower your assessed value.
Thank heaven I live in CA where Prop. 13 saves us
from such property tax nightmares.
Thanks all. I looked at the Board of Assessors link in our town. I checked the other condos assessed values and this is where it gets even more strange. There is no logic in the values. Some properties that are much larger with more rooms and a garage are assessed significantly less than ours are. And some that are the same size and structure are significantly valued differently. The funny thing is on this tax assessed website are listings of the most recent sales. There is one other property that is the same style, square footage, etc of ours. It was sold previously (in 2002 for $220,000), but is now valued at over $400,000. Man talk about a good investment – doubling in just 3 years.
I also found that we need to file an abatement form with all supporting document, like you stated CalamityJane, by Feb. 1st. It is up to the property owner to prove otherwise (which seems insane to me when the values are obviously grossly overstated.
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