Protesting Tax Appraisal (how much, houses, neighborhood)

[FTWRunner]

We bought a house in the Tangelwood Area in April of 2010 and our house tax appraisal value was increased by $60K this year! We have not pulled any permits or done any major changes to the home, just basic improvements, but not $60K worth of improvements. When we initially called TAD we were told our home had just been undervalued.

All the other homes’ tax values on our street have stayed the same or decreased a bit. Our home is not the nicest nor the worse home on the block. The only difference between our home and the others is that it was sold and purchased by us.

So we are contesting it and have our hearing tomorrow. I was wondering if anyone else has had this type of experience and what I should expect at the hearing.

This is feeling very underhanded by TAD.

[jcamber]

I contested mine but submitted an official appraisal done within the year to prove that the house wasn't worth what they were saying. They dropped the home value and did not ask me to come in person, we handled everything via mail. I think the key is to come prepared and have official documentation to prove the value of your home.

Question, the current value is $60k over what you paid, or over what 2010's assessed value was?

[FTWRunner]

$60,000 over last year’s value. My husband did the protest online and I don't know if we were given the option to submit any more paperwork beyond what we sent in initially. I do know that we were not offered a settlement.

[Campeador]

You should pull some comps for the Tanglewood area. Ask the realtor who sold you the home to help you if you need it, at least to get access to MLS.

Another helpful source is TAD's own webpage. You can do a property search for every house on your street. It will show square footage and what each house is appraised at. Bring in a lot of documentation, make a cogent & concise argument (free of emotional pleas), and convince the board of your position.

Best of luck.

[jcamber]

Originally Posted by FTWRunner

$60,000 over last year’s value.

So let's say the house's assessed value for 2010 was $100,000. You paid $170,000 for it and the assessed value for this year is now $160,000...? is that right? if that's the case then there's not much you can do. The house will be assessed at whatever the last purchase price was. I was only able to lower it because while the LIST price of my home was $363,000 but I only paid $310,000. They HAD to lower the assessed value to the $310,000 I paid.

Does that make sense?

[ChristieP]

I got my appraisal lowered $17,000 by giving a market analysis done by a Realtor, and also by making a spreadsheet showing all of the other houses in our neighborhood that are the same floorplan as ours and that they were $15-20k lower than my house. Admittedly, our new appraisal value is less than we paid for the house 2 years ago, but that is where the market is right now.

[loves2read]

but the question is what did the OP actually purchase the house for--
if it was at or higher than the appraisal they won't reduce it with the purchase so close to current appraisal

what they should do is raise the other homes in the area

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by loves2read

but the question is what did the OP actually purchase the house for--
if it was at or higher than the appraisal they won't reduce it with the purchase so close to current appraisal

Mine was reduced this year to below my 2008 purchase price. So, this isn't necessarily true...

[buyerdawn]

I just did a hearing on Friday. It was fast and simple. I did give all my evidence (CMA, settlement statement, appraisal and layout of my neighborhood) but all I really needed was my settlement statement. I also looked at all the houses on my street that were the approx. size of mine and looked to see how much their taxes went up and it was about 0-1% so I took the purchase price of my home and added 1% to it. I requested them to lower my taxes to that value and that's exactly what I got...they knocked $53,000 off.

[jcamber]

good strategy! it always pays off to come to the table with options they can see you thought through and seem fair. You can expect a much better outcome than to just show up to fight.