Fighting an effective property tax protest is probably more of an academic interest if you’ve become the victim of an overly high property tax bill. In this article, I’d like to offer five tips on how you can successfully fight and win the property tax revaluation battle.
With property values fluctuating wildly in many parts of the United States and Canada, it is becoming more and more common for homeowners to discover that taxing authorities have overstated the appraised value of their property.
Why is this so?
Well, for one thing, appraisal offices are often understaffed and, in many cases, simply can’t keep up with the workload involved in adjusting the values of hundreds or thousands of properties.
On the other hand, tax authorities are often slow to lower a property’s valuation, because it means the tax authority collects less tax if they do. While this is not fair or justified, it is the reality. The fact is, it is human nature for many career government workers to exercise this protective herd mentality in the name of job preservation.
With that said, here are the basic steps you need to follow when mounting a property tax protest, i.e., a property tax reduction filing.
1. Go to your local tax assessor’s office and find out what the local tax calendar sets as the deadline for filing a property tax appeal.
2. Request property tax cards for other homes that you know are fairly similar to yours in terms of construction style, total square footage of living space, age, location, and quality. Create a small spreadsheet to help you organize and compare these factors.
3. Compare the appraised values of these homes with yours. If the physical factors are very similar, the evaluated values should be close, but often they are not. If yours has been assessed for tax purposes at a significantly higher value, you likely have a case for filing a property tax protest.
4. Adjust your findings for any obvious differences in value that you can determine from these records, as well as your knowledge of the local area. Is one property evaluated higher perhaps because it is much younger than another, or because it is a custom home versus a land home?
Sometimes there are good reasons for differences in appraised values for very similar homes, but probably more often there really isn’t a good reason. Apply some common sense here in weighing these factors and use the “smell” test. I mean, if it sucks, there’s probably something rotten about the appraised value! And that’s reason enough to launch a property tax protest.
5. State your findings succinctly in a letter to the property tax assessor and avoid being overly dramatic or outraged if you really feel you’re getting a raw deal. Property tax assessors are human and, like you, will react better to honey than vinegar.
You could even start with an informal discussion with the appraiser before submitting an official reduction request. Sometimes an advisor will grant relief based on a good, simple argument.
There is no reason to continue to be a victim of poor government and excessive taxes. It’s easy to launch a winning property tax protest armed with the right information.
