B. City way over appraised my house, taxes way up

[koofie]

I wonder what will happen as the prices drop? I have already seen drops in the prices of condos near me (I'm putting mine on the market soon). That is Balt County, but I am assuming we will see a similar drop in some of the "overpriced" areas of the city.

[barante]

I've been trying to reconstruct what went on seven years ago, when I bought my current house. I got reassessed soon thereafter and for an amount that exceeded my purchase price.
I see that the same thing happened to a neighbor just a few months ago. He bought a house for $399,000 from a couple that had owned it for four decades and got reassessed to $425,000.
Seven years ago I appealed my appraisal and got it lowered some, but not to the acquisition price. I don't know whether my neighbor appealed his.

[chrisdp]

Get this.

Baltimore County changed my home appraisal from $135k, when I bought the house, to $270k, two years later. They straight-up doubled taxes on me. Granted we finished the basement in that time. However, if they think my house is worth $270k, maybe they should pay me back some of that money they stole, when it sells for way under their appraisal.

[atlas1882]

I actually think that one of the best ways to keep property tax assessments reasonable would be to create a law specifying that the city would be obligated to either reduce the assessment to market value or purchase the property for 90% of the assessed value. Assumming that they had the property valued properly, if the owner and city disagreed, the city should be able to pick up the property, sell it below market value and still be able to make a profit. Anybody willing to guess when we'll see such legislation proposed?

[Baltcoman]

I live in Balt County and my assessment just went up 10% per year for the next 3 years. How does that make any sense. Values have been even the last yr.

[rudy_d]

Originally Posted by Baltcoman

I live in Balt County and my assessment just went up 10% per year for the next 3 years. How does that make any sense. Values have been even the last yr.

Last year isn't really a consideration. The state does assessments every three years, so your home probably appreciated considerably more than 10% between the time the previous assessment was performed and last year. The state caps the increase at 10% and the county caps it at 4%.

I think a problem a lot of people are finding is that the reassessment was done last year at the peak of the market, so it's considerably more than what you could sell the property for now. If that's the case, I would appeal just out of principle. However, because of the caps, it's really only an issue if you're planning to sell or rent out your property.