Real Estate Property Taxes and Assessment Loopholes

In certain years a blanket assessment is enacted resulting in a re-assessment of property taxes. Often inaccurate “quick” values are concocted. Many times adjustment is enacted using a multiplier factor to adjust these values. Little time is allocated to this rendering of property value.

Appraisal companies bid for the blanket reappraisal contract for a community. The low bid wins the contract. Ask yourself if the bid allocation was $35 per home, how much time could be spent on that appraisal? Consider the appraiser has to make a profit for his effort further reducing the time allotment to appraise. Often college kids or those with little appraisal experience are employed.

What we are saying is that errors abound in the blanket real estate tax appraisal of properties. If the blanket appraisal company or town uses multipliers, there is no way that you can take those bad initial assessment numbers and turn them into accurate numbers by multiplying them by another figure.

If town internal structures spoke and cooperated closely, blanket assessments would not be necessary. Building inspectors would pass on their information from individual renovations and additions to the tax assessors. New built home market values can likewise be converted to reflect accurate values for the town?s homes and properties.

Tax assessors are time pressed and rarely appraise homes. Usually, they are not property appraisers and are politically appointed. Often they use an entirely different method to derive value for a home by using a cost of materials approach. The universally accepted approach is the market value, what an informed buyer would pay for a home.

Selling prices of homes are constantly changing. When appealing your property taxes, only market value holds weight. Your home must equal the current selling price of other comparable home in your area.

A town expends a tremendous amount of money in the mass appraisal of homes. That cost is passed on directly in the local property tax causing extra tax rate increases. Much valuable time, effort and money is misspent by relying on blanket reassessment by communities. They may catch the occasional shed or deck built without a permit, but that hardly demands a reappraisal.

Blanket reassessment make for a gigantic loophole for homeowners to challenge their property taxes. Half of all property appraisals are in error according to the experts. By doing a simple analysis you can deterring if your home is out of line with what the figures should be. You can save thousands of dollars by appealing your taxes.