Many homeowners who have watched their home value shrink dramatically in the past two years are wondering if their property taxes will be coming down any time soon. They want to know if there is anything that they can do about it. The answer is yes with an asterisk. Since property taxes are controlled by the county you need to know your county rules and regulations regarding property taxes and assessments. Every few years the county will get around to assessing your property. With today’s home values having dropped, your new assessment should reflect local market property values and therefore your property taxes should be lower as a general rule, but not in all cases. You need to do some research first on your own.
You can petition the county assessor’s office and ask them to do a new assessment in your area or for your home specifically. The first thing you need to do however is to call some local realtors and find out what the fair market value of your home is. Most of the time an assessment will not show the true market value of a home, and in many cases the assessment will be less than the market value, but not always. Once you get a market value from several realtors then you need to review them. If the value is higher than your current assessed value, then the prudent course of action is to not petition the assessor’s office at this time. For most homeowners in today’s economy that will not be the case. When you call the assessor’s office you should have those figures from the realtors in mind, but no matter what you tell the assessor, they will not use your calculations. Each county has their own system of establishing property taxes and it is not always based on fair market value.
The assessor’s office may tell you that they do not schedule new assessments until May and this is common for many counties. Find out when they do assessments and if there is any way they can notify you if your area is due for a new assessment. Do not hound these people but be polite and firm and you may get better results. Most of the time you need to make a written request but many counties are now paperless and will request an email or have you go to their website and fill out a request form online. Either way it is quick and easy.
Many people don’t think too much about their property taxes because they are impounded each month into the escrow account they pay with their mortgage payment. They believe the impounds are correct and just assume that the assessor’s office and the title company or mortgage company have their facts and numbers straight. Do not assume that property taxes are being levied correctly. You need to ask for a yearly escrow account audit from your mortgage company or title company if they are handling the impound account. You then need to call the assessor’s office and request a copy of all payments you have made since you received your new mortgage. You need to match the information from the audit against the info from the assessor’s office and make sure that they match. In many cases there may be faulty accounting and you could even be owed money from your mortgage company or from the assessor’s office. These mistakes are much more common than is generally believed and catching them in time can save you from paying too much in property taxes or even insurance.
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