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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,687 posts, read 57,985,728 times
Reputation: 46166
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rivertowntalk
I don't doubt there is some degree of retribution and hostility from some assessors. In a professional position, they shouldn't be doing that. They need to be called out on it. Mine were reduced at the administrative level, but I did not think it was enough, so I appealed it further and went to a hearing. I lost at the next level; however, after that, my values did not go up for 3 years and then there was a year of another reduction and then it didn't change the year after that. So now my view is a little different. I know there are some errors in my current appraisal that overstate, but I don't believe the assessment is really overvalued, in general, as is. Even with the overstatement errors, it may be slightly undervalued on the tax rolls. So leaving it alone is fine for now. The appeal, though, got to have documentation that supports your case.
Been down that road many times (appeal). Worked great on my commercial properties where I could produce a lot of data from comparable rents / structures / locations... But... Farms and personal residence is very difficult to win an appeal, due to burden of PROOF to the appellate. There is too much 'subjective' comps, and when fighting appraisals we only get to work with incremental subtraction of valuation (minimal result), often temporary. Assessor gets to use multiplication (mill levy ($14.7/$1000) / multiplication factors for 'adjustments for condition' ($250/sf in our case), 'improvements'...). I am taxed 6x my cost basis($38/sf), but that is not grounds to appeal (My taxes are up 1000% over 15 yrs due to multiplication factors and speculative buyers of nearby properties that never get developed). From below $3/day to nearly $50/day on primary residence (Farm / forest allocations are only up 50%.)
My rate of increases is significantly higher (over double) than the 50 neighbors I ran standard deviation calculations to fight my last battle at state appeals. I lost. Being beat into submission (slow learner). Expensive and time consuming process.
Probably due to that 'improved' roof on the 'falling down barn'! ugh (a lot of work on both ends... fixing the barn, and fixing the taxes...)
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,687 posts, read 57,985,728 times
Reputation: 46166
Quote:
Originally Posted by AK-Cathy
I've never seen property taxes go "down" before. I'm not buying it. someone stretegically sabatogeing their own land to save a few hundred a year in taxes?
Actually I had a conversation with an older KS farmer this week and his rationale for leaving his sagging barn as it is (that his wife is nagging him about) was exactly this. A good looking barn would be assessed at a higher valuation by the county. He eventually hopes someone will pay him to salvage the wood.
Around here there are groups of individuals that buy old barns for a nominal sum and then dismantle them for the parts. The wood/parts are either processed into furniture or sold. If it were practical I'd build a stone barn on our property.
One of my rural properties has a declining valuation due to a 'liability OLD mobile home'. It is staying!
Locally, lots of Old Barn wood goes into commercial remodels (brew pubs / lodges at the moment). I have a friend who makes a great living running a reclaimed structural lumber mill. (Windfall a few yrs ago when a ship dumped a bunch of 100' long beams and they floated to shore in OR and WA).
Please build that stone barn and post some pics! That would be my dream barn! (Built on a hillside with a grain chute to load the feed wagon!)
Hard to beat the taxman..There's a lot of cases that can be made as to why old barns aren't knocked down but the irrevocable fact is that choice belongs to the owner and weather you like it or not,,,It's his barn,his land and his choice,,things sort of end there as I see it.
I would say Nostalgia. For me one of the best parts of a country road trip is seeing the falling down barns and wishing I could stop, go into them and look around.
I can't speak for anyone else but when I bought this place as a bank repo, it had two old barns in disrepair. One was a large metal barn with sliding doors at each end. The wind and weather had just about torn both doors off their railings and both doors were about to fall to the ground. The other barn was a smaller wooden barn where the old wood shake roof had long since blown away and most of the lap wood siding had dried up or was missing. The metal barn just needed four new metal doors which I hired a contractor to build and install for me. The wooden barn would have been beyond repair in another two years so I wrestled whether or not to just pull it down with a tractor and burn it. I decided it was safer for me to just restore the sides and roof with old corrugated "tin' removed from a rent house we had at the time and install doors and windows. We now have 3,000 square feet of barn storage instead of a pile of rubble and my broken body.
In parts of Ireland I saw many old buildings left abandoned but with no roofs.. I think its a way round rates... but I like to see older farm buldings even if they are left to the elements.
Around here it isn't just barns but houses that get left after the "purpose" is gone. The reasons are varied.
One house that had been left empty for about seven years was suddenly cleaned up, sold, and is now back in service.
Another was used for years as a "haunt house" during the Halloween season.
Another is being kept up largely as a tribute to the matriarch of a particular family, but it also is a type of "insurance" in case a family member falls on hard times and needs a house.
Some of them are "mined" for architectural fixtures and wood.
Some are used for storage. Why pay $50/mo for a tiny storage trailer when you have a huge house or barn?
On taxes - some of the effects are not readily apparent. There are counties that may demand the removal of derelict structures, or maintenance of them to a certain standard. The chances of someone plopping a few dozen McMansions in those areas can be strong, raising the OVERALL value of the acreage, just like land on the outskirts of a city increases in value as the city grows. Being messy enough to discourage such growth is a very real strategy. Things like falling down barns, "parts" cars, and shabby outbuildings and yard art tell Johnny and Joanie from the HOA looking for a place in the country to look elsewhere.
Having grown up in Vermont and Act 250, I've seen the downsides of rural gentrification. When we found our place and saw that there was an auto junkyard nearby that had no visual blocking fence, we knew we were in an area that still had freedom. Some people have very neat and even expensive homes, but the variety of housing intermixed between very poor and wealthy makes people more tolerant rather than less.
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(a lot of work on both ends... fixing the barn, and fixing the taxes
...)
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