Tax appeal? Falling apart everywhere! (Chapel Hill: sales, assessor, chapel)

[Lana537]

We bought our 1952 house in Chapel Hill last year, and all seemed well. Now I know that a coat of paint can go a long way.......

Here we are a year later, and the foundation is cracking in four places, a retaining wall is giving way, and the walkways all around the property are failing badly.

I am actually in tears, in fear for our future. I feel like a fool for falling for a house that looked so much as if it were in good condition, and one year later, everything is growing ugly by the month. (Yes, I had an ASHI home inspector do the inspection, but he could only see what he could see.)

Meanwhile our property value assessment has gone UP over one year. What can you suggest to help me out? This place is falling apart as I look at it!! Any advice about its actual/taxable value will be much appreciated.

......and I thought this would be a nice place/home to retire to.....what a nightmare....

Lana

[no kudzu]

I'm truly sorry for your pain. I can't help you but I hope somebody on here can. Don't give up in your quest for the remedy to your problem. It might not come soon or exactly in the way you imagine but we eventually recovered from a similar situation in a different state. Be open to legal steps which may seem unpleasant and drawn out. Again I'm sorry for your pain.

[CHTransplant]

Brings to mind the movie with Tom Hanks - "The Money Pit." I'm sorry you're having to deal with this.

I don't know the answer on the tax question - whether you can get an assessment changed mid-cycle (which is every 4 years and we're just starting a new 4 year period now). I think I would just call the Orange County Assessor's office and ask them the question as to whether there is a process for having a property re-valued. Barring some obvious calamity like fire, though, I wonder if there's a way ....

[igolfchip]

I'd really reccomend removing this post from this service and pretending it never happened.

From a disclosure standpoint, every issue you're having is now disclosed to a potential purchaser of your property and could lead you to significant legal exposure.

[CHTransplant]

Originally Posted by igolfchip

I'd really reccomend removing this post from this service and pretending it never happened. From a disclosure standpoint, every issue you're having is now disclosed to a potential purchaser of your property and could lead you to significant legal exposure.

Do you really think a potential purchaser will be able to connect her post with the house in question? There's no identifying info and surely there's more than one 1952 house in Chapel Hill. Besides, I don't think the problems she's having are really the kind that the next buyer won't notice if they aren't repaired:

Originally Posted by Lana537

We bought our 1952 house in Chapel Hill last year, and all seemed well. Now I know that a coat of paint can go a long way....... Here we are a year later, and the foundation is cracking in four places, a retaining wall is giving way, and the walkways all around the property are failing badly.

[wheelsup]

Cement cracks are normal due to shrinkage. Are you sure it's not just shrinkage causing the cracks?

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by Lana537

Here we are a year later, and the foundation is cracking in four places, a retaining wall is giving way, and the walkways all around the property are failing badly.

Have you had anyone come out and look at these problems? They might not be as bad or as costly as you are fearing. In regard to the foundation so much depends on where the cracks are, how big they are, direction of the cracks etc. I use to live in an old house and old neighborhood. People were constantly fixing foundation crack issues. Sometimes it was big and ugly, but most of the time it was minor, inexpensive repairs. And this was on homes built in 1900-1930... a bit older than yours.

The retaining wall.... is it possible to dig out the dirt from in front of it and shore it up? Again, this is something that I saw in my old neighborhood and usually was fixed w/ repair the current retaining wall, not replacing the whole thing.

Walkways.... are any of these sidewalks? If so the city could be contacted regarding repair. In not are they just cracking? Again, a friend of mine in my old neighborhood had some cracked walk ways in her yard. She filled in the cracks w/ her son's marbles and little stones, shells, and bits of tile. It became a beautiful art addition to her yard and it was a "repair" she was able to complete in a few weekends herself.

If you've never owned an older house before it can be scary. Take a deep breathe. And good luck.

[saturnfan]

Could relate to a change in the water table. The 2007 drought caused a lot of this.

Might want an engineer to evaluate the soil conditions so you know if the entire home will go out of plumb.

[al_roethlisberger]

Tax assessments are black-magickery ....yes, that is now a new word!

We actually had the assessor come out to our home because we thought we had a justified adjustment to total heated square feet. They agreed, and made some adjustments that we thought might reduce our tax burden. Wrong. The assessor was apologetic, but said that although there were some changes to that alone would have likely reduced the taxable value some, the improvements we had made to the property had adjusted the "effective age" of the house upwards by quite a significant margin. So now our taxable value was quite a bit HIGHER

The lesson, never invite the tax assessor to your property


But with regard to this situation, one can definitely appeal reassessments, although be sure to do so within the prescribed time frame. One usually only has a narrow window of time following notice to appeal. However, this is often a "tough row to hoe" if local comparatives from recent sales tend to indicate an increase in home values in your neighborhood and your property has effectively remained the same(or been improved).

I realize you have noted some issues with the property above, but without more detailed information I doubt those factors would be considered significant deterioration or devaluation of the property. The foundation issues are of course potentially the most significant, but depending on the type of foundation issues may really be minor.

Deteriorated sidewalks and retaining walls may be an eyesore and undesirable, but would likely be considered de rigueur for a nearly 60 year old house and affect value very little.... again depending. If the failing retaining wall was a threat to health/safety(versus purely ornamental) and exceedingly expensive to repair, that may be an issue that could negatively effect value. It just all depends.

Any house is going to be a "money-pit" honestly, new or old unfortunately. With a new house that "pit-ed-ness" is just slightly delayed, but it soon gets in gear with the inevitable additions, changes, and repairs that start to appear.

If it makes you feel any better, we have(had) to replace both of our driveways and all three curb aprons, not to mention ask the city to repair about 20% of our sidewalk area(which they have done) as they had simply deteriorated with normal age/wear. We've so far done 1/2 of one drive, and one apron as they were the worst off, having turned basically into "cobble stone". The rest will have to wait on funding. One thing concrete contractors will always tell you: "concrete will crack, it's not a matter of if, but when". Our current drives are about 50ish years old(the house is 80), so it's time.

And our neighborhood, with homes from about 50-90yrs old, have many retaining walls leaning like towers of Pisa or just falling apart. That's just their nature.

So perhaps it is just time for your walks and walls to be repaired, and that is already factored into any valuation applied?

Al

[Lana537]

Thank you all so very much for all of your posts. I have since calmed down a tad, and I will be looking around to find the right someone to come to the house and give this foundation a very close look.

This is the first house I have ever owned (well, the bank owns!), and it is a daunting thing.

I need to see The Wizard for some Courage!

Thanks again!

Lana