Question about Maine property taxes (foreclose, how much, homes)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

When you go to buy homeowner's insurance on that Millinocket house that you bought for $3,000, the insurance company looks at what it would cost to replace it. Welcome to the real world.

[Maineac]

What does that mean? You pay an insurance premium to replace a home for, say, $250,000.00 in case of a fire and you figure you should only pay against the $3,000.00? I don't care for insurance companies, and have self-insured in the past, but in the "real world" one should at least expect putting back something of equivalent utility if it burns down. $3,000 would get you a nice closet.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

By Jove, he got it!

$3,000 can indeed get you a nice home in Millinocket. I expect it will be a long time before a new home is built in Millinocket.

[Cuffler]

Excuse me for the interruption here but I have a question.

Forget Zillow. There are a lot of homes listed by realtors using MLS for sale that clearly list the annual real estate taxes with the listing. You can even go to the town's website that will confirm that it's accurate enough. My wife and I are in the active examination of towns and their taxes as we hunt for our future home. Now, there's one thing that noone has mentioned:

The tax rate listed for a particular home is for both the local town taxes and county taxes. It's my understanding that the homeowner only pays taxes to the town and the town sends a portion of that to the county. Is it possible that the property taxes are calculated and another portion for the county taxes is added so you end up with total tax payable? I didn't think that the formula for taxing homes by towns was a one-calculation formula but rather two: one for the town and one for the county. Am I incorrect?

Rome

[retiredtinbender]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Excuse me for the interruption here but I have a question.

Forget Zillow. There are a lot of homes listed by realtors using MLS for sale that clearly list the annual real estate taxes with the listing. You can even go to the town's website that will confirm that it's accurate enough. My wife and I are in the active examination of towns and their taxes as we hunt for our future home. Now, there's one thing that noone has mentioned:

The tax rate listed for a particular home is for both the local town taxes and county taxes. It's my understanding that the homeowner only pays taxes to the town and the town sends a portion of that to the county. Is it possible that the property taxes are calculated and another portion for the county taxes is added so you end up with total tax payable? I didn't think that the formula for taxing homes by towns was a one-calculation formula but rather two: one for the town and one for the county. Am I incorrect?

Rome

The County taxes the town on the assessed value according to State calculations of a town's assessed value. The State calculates that based on arms-length sales in the town that the town assessor confirms are good sales. The State sends a sales ratio study to each town every October or so for the town to fill out. Clear as mud? Convolution is the State's strong suit.

[WhoFanMe]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Excuse me for the interruption here but I have a question.

Forget Zillow. There are a lot of homes listed by realtors using MLS for sale that clearly list the annual real estate taxes with the listing. You can even go to the town's website that will confirm that it's accurate enough. My wife and I are in the active examination of towns and their taxes as we hunt for our future home. Now, there's one thing that noone has mentioned:

The tax rate listed for a particular home is for both the local town taxes and county taxes. It's my understanding that the homeowner only pays taxes to the town and the town sends a portion of that to the county. Is it possible that the property taxes are calculated and another portion for the county taxes is added so you end up with total tax payable? I didn't think that the formula for taxing homes by towns was a one-calculation formula but rather two: one for the town and one for the county. Am I incorrect?

Rome

In the Maine MLS, we are supposed to put the current year's gross tax bill (2017-2018) which is payable to that municipality. The gross figure is supposed to not include the Homestead Exemption ($20,000 off the assessed value). Unfortunately, nobody polices that and often the net amount and/or a previous fiscal year will be quoted. Have your buyer agent verify taxes if that's important for you before you write an offer (or see a property). When I put a buyer under contract, I always send the lender and title company the correct property tax amount and/or include a .pdf version of the tax bill.

[WhoFanMe]

Originally Posted by retiredtinbender

I've debated long about replying to this post. Really, I have. You see, I'm an assessor; one of the "evil ones" (cue Darth Vader's intro music). Actually, we ARE trained; quite extensively. We have several week long training seminars/schools each year. We have to have a certain amount of credit hours to maintain State certification. We get trained in the real estate market, land and building valuating, math, including algebra and calculus (for taking those salt marshes and swamps out of you land value as waste land), tax law (try reading MRS Title 36 sometime) and a plethora of other disciplines. A realtor will look back at 6 months to a year of neighborhood to value your property for what they think you could sell for, sometimes having to look outside the town you're in. Assessors will look back sometimes 4-5 years of sales to determine a land schedule in a mass appraisal to value your lot and others. Buildings are based on the "cost to build new, less depreciation". There are 10 separate areas of a building/home that get looked at for this. There are also cost/economic factors based on the local economy (like Millinocket) that are ciphered in. We don't just pull numbers from the old rectal databank.



If you believe you have been over-assessed you CAN file an abatement request. I can't speak for all, but in my town and some others my friends do, we actually go walk the land and look at the house. Shocking, I know. If you don't like the answer you can appeal to the County. We don't care. It costs NOTHING. It only costs if you appeal to Superior Court. And assessors don't mind. It comes from the town coffers not our wallets.



If you have questions about how the property was assessed, OP, contact the assessor. It's all public info. We can email, fax scan to a PDF, all the modern stuff. We aren't heartless and, so long as you don't make it personal, neither will we. That's enough from me. Done. Thanks for your indulgence of listening to a frustrated, old, assessor.

Nice to hear from an assessor, thanks. I've often wondered what happens when a taxpayer wins an appeal and has the assessed value lowered. Since town budgets don't necessarily decrease during a year, who picks up the loss? The 99.9% of the other tax payers or is there a provision in a budget for that loss in revenue?

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Cuffler wonders:

" didn't think that the formula for taxing homes by towns was a one-calculation formula but rather two: one for the town and one for the county. Am I incorrect?"

Partially correct. In addition to town and county taxes, there is a school tax. All of these are pooled by the town and you pay your share of the grand total based on the assessed value of your property; less various breaks such as homeowner exemption, tree growth exemption, open space exemption, veteran exemption and various other exemptions.

[retiredtinbender]

Originally Posted by WhoFanMe

Nice to hear from an assessor, thanks. I've often wondered what happens when a taxpayer wins an appeal and has the assessed value lowered. Since town budgets don't necessarily decrease during a year, who picks up the loss? The 99.9% of the other tax payers or is there a provision in a budget for that loss in revenue?

The overlay is supposed to cover any abatements. It's added in on the tax. The overlay is up to an extra 5% over what is needed to cover the budget. Mine generally runs 1% or less.

[Maineac]

The overlay is added in on top of the valuation of taxable properties in order to calculate the mil rate, as I recall. Or the mil rate is simply raised by the percentage. Can't remember. It used to be "up to 10%." I got out of that stuff years ago. You're a better man than I, suffering the slings and arrows of over budgeted municipal officials and under capitalized property taxpayers.