Help! My property taxes were raised 30% - Oakland NJ (increase)
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It's horror stories like this that make me feel like I made the right call in never buying a home in the Tony Soprano State. I so can't wait to get out of the people's republic republic of NJ once I'm retired. It's creepy out there. 15K a year in property taxes is cruel. Lemme guess. I suspect we may hear from some of the NJ over the top property tax defenders come out and remind us that it's necessary, because NJ has great schools!
2. Went through my important saved mail pile to see if there was any indication that taxes were going to increase. And, alas, I found a notice that our house was assessed for $476,600 in 2014 and $587,000 in 2015. How they assessed our home for over 100K more without any improvements having been made blows my mind. How is this possible?!?? I should also mention that the tax assessor never even came into our house.
Basically you need to call or write your tax assessor (phone number and email is on the Oakland web site) and find out why your assessment changed. I don't know any reason an assessment would have changed on an older house 4 years after a revaluation, unless a partial re-assessment was done in the town (unlikely) or work was done on the house (which you said didn't happen). I think the _appeal_ deadline was April 1, but it may not apply if the change in assessed value wasn't done legally; you'd have to ask a lawyer about that if it came to it.
First of all - THANK you for all your great responses and advice. I am a first-time homeowner and this rise in my property taxes has been extremely upsetting. I took some of your advice and did the following:
1. Reviewed the comps - they are all between 13K-15K. However, our land is very sloped, so I wonder if I could try arguing this point, as this sloping likely makes our land less valuable.
2. Went through my important saved mail pile to see if there was any indication that taxes were going to increase. And, alas, I found a notice that our house was assessed for $476,600 in 2014 and $587,000 in 2015. How they assessed our home for over 100K more without any improvements having been made blows my mind. How is this possible?!?? I should also mention that the tax assessor never even came into our house.
Additional comments:
1. Can you still hire a lawyer to contest the assessment even if you missed the assessment disagreement deadline?
2. Has anyone actually done this - tried to contest the assessment and won? Any advice for me? 3. How is this legal? I thought there was a 2% cap on raising taxes unless improvements were made to the house?
4. One commenter inquired whether our home was new construction - the answer is definitely not. The house was built in 1959 and remodeled in 2004. Nothing since then.
Thank you all again for your valuable advice!
Elle
The 2% cap is on the tax rate. Not on the assessment. Doing a rough estimate of those numbers in my head, they did not raise your tax rate very much at all. Definitely under the 2% cap. You really need to find out why they reassessed your home, and why it is so much higher than the old assessment.
Welcome to NJ , the screwed up life. Hey that tax rate isnt bad considering your house was assessed for 587k, sounds about in line with what the taxes are. Why do you think people are sick of NJ taxes? , GL to you.
Just wanted to give you all an update. I spoke with the Tax Assessor's office this morning. Apparently, the sale of our house triggered them to go look at the property. They realized that the square footage recorded was incorrect - 2100 square feet of livable space, whereas in actuality, we had 2500 square feet of livable space. Basically, it was an error that had never been caught.
Not sure what to do at this point. Sounds like if I contest it, we will lose, since the new property assessment is actually correct. The only part I'm still unclear about is whether or not they are able to come out and assess just simply based on the sale of a home. That sounds wrong on some level. The Tax Assessor's office also mentioned that sometimes, when a house is sold, they review the file for open permits or check to see if any work was done without permits. But this wasn't an issue in our case, but thought I'd share the info.
I guess we'll just have to accept the hike in taxes.
Thanks to everyone who wrote encouraging words and advice!
Just wanted to give you all an update. I spoke with the Tax Assessor's office this morning. Apparently, the sale of our house triggered them to go look at the property. They realized that the square footage recorded was incorrect - 2100 square feet of livable space, whereas in actuality, we had 2500 square feet of livable space. Basically, it was an error that had never been caught.
Not sure what to do at this point. Sounds like if I contest it, we will lose, since the new property assessment is actually correct. The only part I'm still unclear about is whether or not they are able to come out and assess just simply based on the sale of a home. That sounds wrong on some level. The Tax Assessor's office also mentioned that sometimes, when a house is sold, they review the file for open permits or check to see if any work was done without permits. But this wasn't an issue in our case, but thought I'd share the info.
I guess we'll just have to accept the hike in taxes.
Thanks to everyone who wrote encouraging words and advice!
Elle
It is against the law to "spot" assess in NJ. You MAY have an argument that the appraiser performed a "spot" assessment on your place. You need to contact an appraiser that specializes in Tax Appeals. There is a very specific process that must be followed for a tax appeal so pay the $500 to $1,000 for someone familiar with the process to perform the appeal. A sale is NOT supposed to trigger a reassessment in NJ. Search the web for tax appeal appraiser.
Also, NJ has always had terrible property taxes. It's to pay for those great schools. Hopefully, that gives you comfort when you stroke that tax check. NJ - the quality of life state.
ps
found this link (page 15)...looks like the tax assessor can update the assessment if the property records are incorrect. Lovely loophole. If your house is in fact 2,500 sf sounds like you're up the creek.
Just wanted to give you all an update. I spoke with the Tax Assessor's office this morning. Apparently, the sale of our house triggered them to go look at the property. They realized that the square footage recorded was incorrect - 2100 square feet of livable space, whereas in actuality, we had 2500 square feet of livable space. Basically, it was an error that had never been caught.
Not sure what to do at this point. Sounds like if I contest it, we will lose, since the new property assessment is actually correct. The only part I'm still unclear about is whether or not they are able to come out and assess just simply based on the sale of a home. That sounds wrong on some level. The Tax Assessor's office also mentioned that sometimes, when a house is sold, they review the file for open permits or check to see if any work was done without permits. But this wasn't an issue in our case, but thought I'd share the info.
I guess we'll just have to accept the hike in taxes.
Thanks to everyone who wrote encouraging words and advice!
Elle
If I were you, I would hire an attorney to file a tax appeal. I think the deadline has already passed, but you can do it next year. I certainly would not simply accept such an outrageous increase. There are attorneys who won't charge until an appeal is won.
I would also go to the budget hearings for the township and the board of education and put some pressure on them. Open the books and you'll find plenty of waste and questionable expenditures.
I have family who owns a business in West Milford and the taxes will probably drive them out of business.
I would contact a lawyer. We plan to do the same and our taxes only went up $1000 but that was on top of already high taxes.
I would see if you could get them reduced because they will only continue to go up.
I got my tax bill cut by 30% a few years ago when the housing market was down. I gathered a bunch of home sales records from the county website and showed them value dropped and explained their progressive rate was not aligned with market rate. It took about 3-4 months to get the assessment down in writing. The sale price data around your area is the key, if the homes are going up big time then you have to pay up.
if having to pay $250 more a month and you can't afford the house, I think you should think twice about keeping the house.
My taxes go up $1k per year for the last 3 years. I heard that's almost an average increase.
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