If and when Nassau County reassesses home values.... (lawyers, homes)
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Property tax is like buying an expensive car you pay more taxes.
And not just property tax. Buy a large McMansion you pay more insurance, pay more heat, pay more electric, pay more for repairs and when contractors come by to fix something they see dollar signs and charge you more.
And guess what do a party you cant have hotdogs, supermarket sheet cake and an above ground pool. Better be catered and inground.
Bottom line assessor and everyone else sees you as easy cash. But funny part the tax is not income based.
And odd part is the small houses near me have most kids and pay less school taxes. And the assessor office is biased when you grieve. Human bias anyone has.
Put a fancy portico on your Split and that fake brick/stucco and park a BMW and Mercedes in driveway.
Identical house next door but with original 1950s look out front and a 20 year old Chevy in driveway owned by a senior citizen on enhanced star.
Take it to ARC and you both request a grieving based on an exterior picture of house alone who are you giving a better deal to.
Not remotely true. Like a car and sales tax, you pay a transfer tax at the time a home is sold and the transfer tax correlates to the purchase price. A house, unlike a car, is thereafter taxed annually in the form of property taxes. The closest automotive equivalent I suppose would be your bi-annual registration. But unlike a registration, which is a flat rate, property taxes are progressive despite the fact that the public services provided are not materially different between a large and small property.
Is it fair? Depends on your perspective, I suppose. But it certainly isn't equivocal like sales tax, as you posit.
Right now folks who grieve regularly (every year) are assessed at around 20-25% less than folks who never grieve. Meaning they pay 20-25% less taxes than similar homes in their town who never grieve....
The root question is why are such a high percentage of grievers successful in the first place? If assessments were kept current and accurate you would see fewer grievances filed and even less resulting in successful reductions.
It can be done, several Suffolk Towns have low rates of successful grievance, but Nassau politicians lack the will to endure the fallout from a full and accurate reassessment. Part of this is due to homeowner ignorance, they read the word reassessment in Newsday and immediately assume their taxes will rise, when in fact some will rise, some will fall and others will be unchanged.
Put a fancy portico on your Split and that fake brick/stucco and park a BMW and Mercedes in driveway.
Identical house next door but with original 1950s look out front and a 20 year old Chevy in driveway owned by a senior citizen on enhanced star.
Take it to ARC and you both request a grieving based on an exterior picture of house alone who are you giving a better deal to.
Using the current system, the taxes would be unequal because the "improved" house has a higher market value. If enough houses made improvements and brought the average property values up, the senior citizen would also see an increase in his market value, and thus taxes, because of that average.
I have grieved taxes several times on different properties in both Nassau and Suffolk. Never had to provide a picture of the home. Lawyers filed the papers and the grievance went through. Have you actually provided photos for a grievance process? Or was that a hypothetical to make a point?
but Nassau politicians lack the will to endure the fallout from a full and accurate reassessment.
If grievances are usually successful, that indicates the assessments are too high. I don't think they lack the will or worry about any fallout. They are simply reaping the benefits of over-taxation.
Let's say you knowingly overcharge 100 people for an item. When 75 come back to complain, you apologize and refund them the difference. You may even "negotiate" the refund so you are still overcharging, just not as much.
Either way, you still have a windfall from the 25 who didn't complain.
If you simply charged everyone the lower, correct price you are guaranteed to make less money.
I submit that a full and _accurate_ reassessment is impossible. The county has a vested interest in keeping assessments high. A lower assessment means less income. When you approach the task with a "we have to make sure the numbers add up to $XX.XX or higher" it skews the results.
In the private sector, there is competition and supply/demand at work. Charge too much and people will not buy the product or purchase from a competitor. The public sector has no such constraints. You are literally forced to pay whatever number they come up with. The incentive is for them to issue higher assessments.
Using the current system, the taxes would be unequal because the "improved" house has a higher market value. If enough houses made improvements and brought the average property values up, the senior citizen would also see an increase in his market value, and thus taxes, because of that average.
I have grieved taxes several times on different properties in both Nassau and Suffolk. Never had to provide a picture of the home. Lawyers filed the papers and the grievance went through. Have you actually provided photos for a grievance process? Or was that a hypothetical to make a point?
So you have Never grieved your taxes. I grieve my own taxes. Sometimes I do photos. After Sandy I mailed in a 100 page application with dozens of photos of damage. Too much to submit on-line.
99% of people don't use upload feature in mynassauproperty tool. I used it this year as I had a bunch of stuff.
Lawyers do it on a mass basis, they would never do this type of stuff.
I love to grieve it is a bit of a hobby. Hiring a lawyer is like hiring someone to go to Vegas for you as it is fun winning and dealing with them.
If grievances are usually successful, that indicates the assessments are too high. I don't think they lack the will or worry about any fallout. They are simply reaping the benefits of over-taxation.
Let's say you knowingly overcharge 100 people for an item. When 75 come back to complain, you apologize and refund them the difference. You may even "negotiate" the refund so you are still overcharging, just not as much.
Either way, you still have a windfall from the 25 who didn't complain.
If you simply charged everyone the lower, correct price you are guaranteed to make less money.
I submit that a full and _accurate_ reassessment is impossible. The county has a vested interest in keeping assessments high. A lower assessment means less income. When you approach the task with a "we have to make sure the numbers add up to $XX.XX or higher" it skews the results.
In the private sector, there is competition and supply/demand at work. Charge too much and people will not buy the product or purchase from a competitor. The public sector has no such constraints. You are literally forced to pay whatever number they come up with. The incentive is for them to issue higher assessments.
Joe, your overcharging analogy is meaningless. The ony thing reassessment, grievances and exemptions accomplish is to redistribute the tax burden. The bulk of taxes are for schools and those are determined by the school budgets which are voted on by district residents. To say the County would "makes less money" with proper assessment is ludicrous. It COSTS to process grievances and then COSTS again when the County has to borrow $$ to pay refunds.
When the current County Executive took office one of the first things he did was to postpone residential reassessment. And believe me, it was for political expediency, not to make more money (except maybe for the politically connected attorneys and appraisers). Now the reassessment chickens will come home to roost. If things get bad enough someone will go to court and a judge will mandate reassessment, like was done in Southampton (Suffolk) years ago.
So you have Never grieved your taxes. I grieve my own taxes. Sometimes I do photos. After Sandy I mailed in a 100 page application with dozens of photos of damage. Too much to submit on-line.
99% of people don't use upload feature in mynassauproperty tool. I used it this year as I had a bunch of stuff.
Lawyers do it on a mass basis, they would never do this type of stuff.
I love to grieve it is a bit of a hobby. Hiring a lawyer is like hiring someone to go to Vegas for you as it is fun winning and dealing with them.
Interesting about the option for photos when doing it on your own. Never realized that as I have always had a law firm do it for me.
The Vegas analogy is interesting. I, however, would gladly hire someone to go to Vegas for me every month if they had a 100% win rate (which is what the lawyers have had for me on grievances). Not to mention that dealing with governments and taxes only serves to increase my blood pressure. I live longer by having someone else do it.
Interesting about the option for photos when doing it on your own. Never realized that as I have always had a law firm do it for me.
The Vegas analogy is interesting. I, however, would gladly hire someone to go to Vegas for me every month if they had a 100% win rate (which is what the lawyers have had for me on grievances). Not to mention that dealing with governments and taxes only serves to increase my blood pressure. I live longer by having someone else do it.
As the say in Great Neck a lawyer is just someone too dumb to get into Medical School.
Lawyers have a very high win rate. I had a huge win a few years ago as Assessor threw up an offer right away with barely any work. If I was a lawyer I would have accepted for my ten minutes work and moved on. Instead I rejected and fought and fought till I got a big win. With billable hours a lawyer might not have done that.
Joe, your overcharging analogy is meaningless. The ony thing reassessment, grievances and exemptions accomplish is to redistribute the tax burden. The bulk of taxes are for schools and those are determined by the school budgets which are voted on by district residents. To say the County would "makes less money" with proper assessment is ludicrous. It COSTS to process grievances and then COSTS again when the County has to borrow $$ to pay refunds.
Interesting take, but I disagree. Having the higher tax income number in the budget allows the county to spend more, especially with the NIFA oversight and restrictions.
While it costs to process the grievances, I would be surprised if the amount spent is greater than the amount received (and kept) through over-assessed properties.
There is also the extra tax revenue earned. The lawyers make money filing grievances. That is taxable income for their law firm. So the feds, state and locals get a piece of that back through income tax. Insane, since it is supposed to be a refund for an overpayment. They get you coming and going.
I don't have statistics to prove what percentage of grievances are approved. My impression is that just about every one filed does involve a lowering of taxes. All the ones I am familiar with results in a substantial change in the total tax bill.
IF (big if) that is the norm, then that means the assessed values are too high. Taxes are based on those values. A "proper" re-assessment would have to result in a lower total assessed valuation for all homes in the county - which means a lower total amount of taxes collected. I don't see how that is "ludicrous." It's basic math.
I am guessing that you feel properties in Nassau are not, on average, over-assessed? If so, how do you account for the plethora of grievances and law firms that specialize in filing them?
As the say in Great Neck a lawyer is just someone too dumb to get into Medical School.
Lawyers have a very high win rate. I had a huge win a few years ago as Assessor threw up an offer right away with barely any work. If I was a lawyer I would have accepted for my ten minutes work and moved on. Instead I rejected and fought and fought till I got a big win. With billable hours a lawyer might not have done that.
I Also grieve my own taxes... but I wouldn't call it fun or a hobby for me... I am glad you like it, but I spend the actual 20 minutes it takes to do my grievance and then I am out. I also upload supporting evidence. I also just accept whatever they give me..... Too much work to go any further...
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Not to mention that dealing with governments and taxes only serves to increase my blood pressure. I live longer by having someone else do it. 
