Re-assessment value appealed by school district (Franklin: sale, house, buyer)

[Copanut]

Good advice given by all, but you can always go to the hearing with your lawyer, no doubt he'll charge 500 for the day. My guess is nothing will happen, how can you defend a lower value when you just paid x amount for it? Life ain't fair.

But this GD School Districts are driving all of us nuts. They think they have a blank check.

Final advice, only hire a lawyer if he PROMISES your assessment will be lower or you will not have to pay!!!

My guess is he will back down.

[Velvet Jones]

Originally Posted by Retiredcoach

The sales price means everything in the assessment process, so you would be better off saving any monies that you would be paying an attorney to pay your new tax bill. I am surprised, however, that the school district is challenging on the relatively small amount ($34000), when there are a whole lot more "bigger fish" to fry (those not being reassessed despite a much wider gap in the assessed value to sales price). It will only be a matter of time before this ongoing inequitable process will be further challenged in the courts.

For many school districts the reassessment appeal on a new sale is automatic, though I thought that might have ended after the recent county wide reassessments.

[john_pittsburgh]

Your best option is to go for appraisal again. I know you said you did appraisal while buying property and it came out more than what you paid. But there is a big difference now and when you were buying. Since you were buying property, usually appraisal company would try to appraise at higher level then your loan amount. This is because your realtor agent would have told the appraisal company that you were buying and you were financing X amount. For obvious reason realtor agent do not want to loose sale due to some variation in the appraisal amount and fearing the deal gets cancelled. There are always high and low end of appraisal value. When you call appraisal company tell them upfront why you want to do appraisal. In this case tell them you think your property is worth X amount and you are going for appeal. I bet they will hear you and give you appraisal which is low end of the market value. Over the years I have done few of my houses appraised for refinancing loan. I was very surprised that there was wide variation in value of the same property. Appraisal cost usually $350, lawyer would do the same thing and will charge you for his time as well.

[Buckeye Burgher]

I filed an appeal on mine, based largely on photos of the condition of the rental property next door.

They sent out a crew to cut the grass and cited the owner for a bunch of violations.
Cut my assessment by a whopping $400!

The fix is in on these things.

[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by john_pittsburgh

Your best option is to go for appraisal again. I know you said you did appraisal while buying property and it came out more than what you paid. But there is a big difference now and when you were buying. Since you were buying property, usually appraisal company would try to appraise at higher level then your loan amount. This is because your realtor agent would have told the appraisal company that you were buying and you were financing X amount. For obvious reason realtor agent do not want to loose sale due to some variation in the appraisal amount and fearing the deal gets cancelled. There are always high and low end of appraisal value. When you call appraisal company tell them upfront why you want to do appraisal. In this case tell them you think your property is worth X amount and you are going for appeal. I bet they will hear you and give you appraisal which is low end of the market value. Over the years I have done few of my houses appraised for refinancing loan. I was very surprised that there was wide variation in value of the same property. Appraisal cost usually $350, lawyer would do the same thing and will charge you for his time as well.

From my understanding, having a recent appraisal does not necessarily guarantee a lower assessment. In fact, the assessment board rarely deviates much from the actual sales price to determine property value. The actual sales price is the standard.

[Bong477]

In my experience they take the higher of the two... my house was assessed at around 80k more than I had just paid for it. My appraisal was a little higher than my sales price and the assessment was adjusted to the appraisal.

Anyway, I think this appeal is going to be a fail unless you have some evidence your house has dropped significantly in value since purchase or you were swindled into overpaying for it.

[stburr91]

Just remember, that when your assessment is much lower that the actual value of your property, that you aren't paying your fair share. Almost always, it's the lowest valued properties that are making up the difference, as these properties are systemically over assessed. So if you think your taxes are high, just think about how bad it is for the people with the low value properties. These people are generally lower income, and are not only paying their share, but part of your share as well.

[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by stburr91

Just remember, that when your assessment is much lower that the actual value of your property, that you aren't paying your fair share. Almost always, it's the lowest valued properties that are making up the difference, as these properties are systemically over assessed. So if you think your taxes are high, just think about how bad it is for the people with the low value properties. These people are generally lower income, and are not only paying their share, but part of your share as well.

There are a ton of inequities in the Allegheny County Assessment process beyond this this. How about the expensive house that sells for x number of dollars, but is only reassessed for a fraction of the sales price? Or, for the buyer who just purchases a "cookie cutter" house and who almost immediately gets a matching assessment, but his neighbors living in similar/better properties are left unscathed. How about the whole appeal process, whereas the appellant cannot used the current assessment value of another similar property, only sale prices to value his property on a tier that the county has already established?

This whole process of assessing properties is entrenched with inequity and oversight. It will not be too long before there is another class action suit for one of those afflicted by these visible and pronounced inequities in Allegheny County, where the county will, once again, be called to task.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by stburr91

Just remember, that when your assessment is much lower that the actual value of your property, that you aren't paying your fair share. Almost always, it's the lowest valued properties that are making up the difference, as these properties are systemically over assessed. So if you think your taxes are high, just think about how bad it is for the people with the low value properties. These people are generally lower income, and are not only paying their share, but part of your share as well.

Much worse are the city properties that investors/developers sit on that are assessed for paltry amounts but are being marketed for sale in the millions.

Among others, Forest City Developers (who owns station square) are a example of this. Not only does this produce inequality but ties up prime real estate from being developed since it's cheap to just sit on it.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Much worse are the city properties that investors/developers sit on that are assessed for paltry amounts but are being marketed for sale in the millions.

This. Plus when they sell and avoid the transfer tax by paying lawyers to make it a sale that isn't technically a sale.