Tax assessor drove by.

I live in a bit of a sketchy neighborhood, though things have improved over the 15 years we've lived here. One thing you could always count on was the tax assessor not bothering us because he had better return on his time in other parts of the county. We've done a LOT to the house (no permits required so the county didn't know) but our appraised value has only gone up something like 18% total since we moved in.
Well, we finally got the letter. Our assessed value is 210% of what it was last year. The value is still lower than it's worth so I'm not going to go protest and potentially make things worse. Also, they can only legally increase our tax bill by 10% a year unless they're taxing improvements since January first, of which there are none.

Just to make you feel awesome about Texas, and your max 10% per year annual increase...

In Skaneateles, NY there was a year (and I don't have specifics, this was 90's) where the whole town was essentially re-assessed and the papers were full of stories of homeowners without mortgages who had to move because they could not afford their new tax bills.

mazdeuce wrote: Also, they can only legally increase our tax bill by 10% a year unless they're taxing improvements since January first, of which there are none.

Watch out on a refinancing though. Depending on your areas laws, they can reset the whole thing then. Got burned on that one a few years back. Ate up the whole savings I was going to get refinancing the place.

In reply to tuna55:

I've got a rather well-off relative in Rockland Country, NY. His house is rather large, though not ridiculously so (built in probably the 70s or early 80s and wouldn't hold a candle to the average modern McMansion). I remember him once telling my dad his property tax bill was something in the neighborhood of $30k a year! berkeley that noise!

In reply to foxtrapper:

IIRC, the deucehome is paid for.

Paying taxes without a mortgage is definitely something that can bite folks who forget a good bit of their payment goes into the tax escrow and then don't put that money aside every month. I know how much my taxes are and when I'll need to pay them well ahead of time so I can be sure the money will be available.

Guy in my neighborhood got a tax assessment for less than he paid for a new house. He protested it anyway, and they raised his assessment to what he paid. He then bitched about it on our neighborhood Facebook page, effectively broadcasting his dumbassery. In our area, if you've bought a house within a year the tax assessor will use the purchase price (unless it was a foreclosure or something odd) as the value, regardless of what the appraisal says. I got my assessment lowered that same year because my assessment was higher than what I paid for the house. They've been raising it ever since and I've protested it every year since, with mixed results.

Even in Texas with the 10% limit it is often worthwhile to protest the taxes every year. Otherwise, if they raise the value over a couple of years, the 10% becomes automatic, when it could potentially be less.

If I were the OP, I'd make sure that the neighbors are being assessed at the same value psf, etc., before conceding that the assessor's value is less than the market value. You can protest your taxes on the basis of market value AND/OR equitable assessment. However, if you're convinced you've got away with a lower value than you should have, then you are wise to avoid the process.

Dang Revenooers!

Basil Exposition wrote: In our area, if you've bought a house within a year the tax assessor will use the purchase price (unless it was a foreclosure or something odd) as the value, regardless of what the appraisal says.

Same rule in my area. "Fair Market Value" is a guess at price but if it was a recent sale you have a "Real Market Value" and that is the assessed price as long as the sale was an "at arms length sale". This means no inside deal between relatives, friends, etc.

My sale was genuine and the house had been on the market for 3 years. They were very reluctant to move my assessment down $51.7k. They first tried to only move it down $33.5k but that still meant it was appraised higher than my purchase price. I continued to push and they had no other choice. What they ended at was just under $4k less than what I paid for the place. 3 years later and still no increase (and local property values have likely not really risen either.)

Well, two houses on the street have sold in the past three years. One was smaller house, on a smaller lot with a smaller garage and it sold for about 30% more than the market value they just assigned our house. I'm not sure what the other one ended up selling for, but it was listed for more than ours, sold, sat for 18 months and the new owners (not sure if they're the ones that bought it 18 months ago) just demolished the structure two weeks ago. There's probably a story there.
We've never had a mortgage and we've basically been paying taxes on the single story bare concrete exterior no central HVAC falling down garage property we bought. My Texas property taxes are something like 12% of my Michigan property taxes, so I'm not even a little upset by it. Every year since we put the second story on I open the envelop from the country expecting this. We got away with it for 12 years. Not bad.

Wife and I were poking around on zillow for fun the other day and saw a house that (currently about a 700k house) that saw its taxes go from $3400/year in 2007 to $30,000/year in 2008. Taxes have been $25kish/year ever since.

I get that they did a tear down and rebuild on the lot, but OUCH!!!

We were at my wife's boss's house a couple of weeks ago and the house next to it was for sale for $1.2 million. His house is noticeably larger. On the way home we did a quick calculation and figured he was paying more in taxes each year than our house was appraised for. Now that they changed our appraisal we can't be so smug about our frugal says.

Here in California, we’ve had a provision in place since the 1970’s called Proposition 13 which limits annual property tax increases to 2% per year. Additionally, at age 55, you can transfer your property tax base to another home assuming a bunch of provisions are met like staying in the same county or moving between adjoining counties that have an agreement and the two homes have to be within +/- 10% value or something like that.

It’s a super sweet deal and honestly, I’m amazed that Prop 13 has survived for 40 years.

I commute 42 miles each way largely because it would cost me a fortune in additional property tax to move to another home of equal value. Everyone is so committed to being green out here yet if we just dropped the 55 year old requirement, we’d save millions of gallons of gas each year and significantly reduce freeway congestion by not penalizing people for moving closer to work.

Tax Assessor?

Another reason I will never own a house again. Even when you pay off your mortgage, you are still in danger of having it taken away if you don't pay more money. So you never own it, really, if The Man has the legal ability to take it away.

at least they just drove by. the county auditor was walking around the yard one day when my wife got home from work. he found the deck i built on the side of the house that the street can't see.

EvanR wrote: Another reason I will never own a house again. Even when you pay off your mortgage, you are still in danger of having it taken away if you don't pay more money. So you never own it, really, if The Man has the legal ability to take it away.

Quite true, you can't ever actually own anything more than you can carry with you, everything else you are just renting or leasing whether from the bank or the government.

I was chatting with my uncle the other day and I asked him about the skids in front of his pole barn. He pulls them all out when the tax assessor is coming by. They think this modular home is a trailer and the skids, making a mess, only drop the value more. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

EvanR wrote: Another reason I will never own a house again. Even when you pay off your mortgage, you are still in danger of having it taken away if you don't pay more money. So you never own it, really, if The Man has the legal ability to take it away.

What? That makes no sense. You are still paying the taxes while you have a mortgage, you just don't notice it as much since it's rolled into the payment. Even if you rent, you are still indirectly paying property taxes through the rent payment.

I also live some 48 miles from my main office in NJ because housing costs and related taxes near work are roughly 2x (or more) what I pay in PA. I had toyed with the idea of relocating to NH (where I'm currently working), but I recently learned our work here is probably for another 5 years or so. After that, who knows. I'd rather stay where I am where there's some comfort in the familiarity and I know what my expenses are likely to be for the foreseeable future.

mazdeuce wrote: Well, two houses on the street have sold in the past three years. One was smaller house, on a smaller lot with a smaller garage and it sold for about 30% more than the market value they just assigned our house. I'm not sure what the other one ended up selling for, but it was listed for more than ours, sold, sat for 18 months and the new owners (not sure if they're the ones that bought it 18 months ago) just demolished the structure two weeks ago. There's probably a story there. We've never had a mortgage and we've basically been paying taxes on the single story bare concrete exterior no central HVAC falling down garage property we bought. My Texas property taxes are something like 12% of my Michigan property taxes, so I'm not even a little upset by it. Every year since we put the second story on I open the envelop from the country expecting this. We got away with it for 12 years. Not bad.

Don't know where you are in Texas, but you can run your address through here and, if they cover your county, you can get a quick idea of where you stand vs your neighborhood. They'll give you the result for free, but if you want the detail for a protest you'll have to pay for the report.

patgizz wrote: at least they just drove by. the county auditor was walking around the yard one day when my wife got home from work. he found the deck i built on the side of the house that the street can't see.

That's trespassing.

Property taxes. Kicking the poor out of their houses for 100s of years.

That's how the City of Charleston has kicked all the poor families out of the peninsula area over the last 50 years.

Personally, I'd like to see property tax rates locked for as long as you own the home and reassessments only happening when the property was sold.

Huge increases in assessments may be due to your locality's tax rate.

In my city they went to full value. My assessment more than doubled but since the tax rate changed, my taxes did not increase.

Toyman01 wrote: Personally, I'd like to see property tax rates locked for as long as you own the home and reassessments only happening when the property was sold.

That wouldn't fix the problem of poor owners loosing their houses. It would just be more drastic jumps when the property transfers, and it would be unpredictable. Buyers would have no idea what the expected taxes may be at the time of purchase.

It would also discourage moving (kind of like rent control does). This would be a hit to the local economy- new home buyers and move uppers buy more stuff for their homes than people who are staying put.

The amount of actual working tax paying homeowners is dwindling nationwide. The amount of non working non tax paying non homeowners is still increasing. Guess who the man is gonna stick it to?

I would also add because of this increasing tax burden, it sure seems like it's closing the gap on the real and perceived monetary benefits of home ownership.

SVreX wrote:

patgizz wrote: at least they just drove by. the county auditor was walking around the yard one day when my wife got home from work. he found the deck i built on the side of the house that the street can't see.

That's trespassing.

according to what i can find, it's only trespassing if you post no trespassing signs, notify their office that they are not allowed, or ask them to leave if you see them come. otherwise part of their job is determining the taxable value. the good part was it looked like a junkyard when he was here, i had several part-outs, an old boat with a ratty tarp on it, a bunch of trailers, and a pile of scrap. so the value went down according to the auditor.