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Okay I do not believe a commute from south butler would be within 1 hour during rush hour(from Wexford its 1 hr). A commute from the North Hills using 279 is definitely your best bet. I would also try to avoid Route 28/Route 8 as there seem to be many construction projects. The North Allegheny and Pine Richland School Districts are very good districts in the North Hills. Also the North Hills has many restaurants and Ross Park Mall which will soon be the only location in Pittsburgh with a Nordstroms and Tiffanys. Hope this helps!
In any case here is what happened, I bought the house in Oct. In March I received service from the North Hills School Dist to appear in The Court of Common Pleas. I have retained an attorney and he seems to think that this is a lawsuit. In no event was this disclosed. Whatever you want to call it, it is something that is a major problem. If this was disclosed up front, steps could have been taken to protect both myself and the seller from undo litigation...like holding funds to cover the cost in escrow. Also, thats about 542 cases a month...You'd think someone would notice its a problem and get it straightened out. I am not against paying my fair share, but this is nothing more than Govt adopting predatory tactics. I understand that the school boards have a problem with the county but it appears that the school boards lack the leadership to solve the problem and chose rather to attack its citizens. If they feel that assesments vased on the sale price of a house is better than the assesment process, then put it a vote by the people after all, isn't this still a democracy?
If you are in the Court of Common Pleas with a docket number that starts with "BV" (e.g. looks like this: BV-07-004573) then it is likely that the North Hills School District appealed the assessment the previous owners had to the BPAAR and was not happy with the result there and so they appealed that to the Board of Viewers. All this should have been disclosed by the seller.
Like I said in my previous post, the system is set up to punish new home owners such as yourself (I am also a victim of it). The law is written in such a way that it is easy for School Districts to go after new people and increase their assessments, while claiming to everyone else that they are not increasing their millage. Politically, new home owners are a minority that can be sacrificed so that long time residents can maintain their artificially low assessments. Welcome to Allegheny County!
This same sort of thing happened in California. The people banded together, and through petitions, etc, forced the issue to a ballot. This is now known as the Jarvis-Gann Amendment. What it did was a. base all property tax on the selling price of the prperty, b. It fixed the the amount of the tax paid. No Tax increases, ever. The school districts howled and for months ran adds about how they would never have money. What happened in fact was, they had more money than ever and the tax system was far. It tied the fate of the school district to the prosperity of the community, thereby causing the schools to be true partners and not a privilaged class....The process taken to achieve this makes for some interesting reading......
California's Proposition 13 was indeed a model for much of the country, but I am not sure I would call it "fair".
To me what is fair is that people owning the same sort of property in the same neighborhood should be subject to the same property tax. But Proposition 13 and laws like it create a large difference in property taxes on similar properties depending on when exactly the owners bought the properties in question.
Now, I understand that some people are concerned that a fair property tax (fair according to the definition above) could have regressive effects, such as by effectively taxing some lower-income people or retirees at a higher percentage of their income if they happen to live in a house that has appreciated a great deal since they first bought it. But if that is your concern, the proper solution for that problem is to swap other less regressive taxes for some or all of the property tax burden on lower-income people and retirees.
If you instead try to get at this problem through the roundabout manner of Proposition 13 and the like, what you end up doing is rewarding all long-term owners at the expense of all new owners, regardless of whether those long-term owners have low or high incomes relative the new owners. So, you fix some regressive effects, but can actually cause new ones.
For example, middle-aged people in more lucrative stages of their careers can end up paying much less in property taxes than young people just starting out with their first home. Generally, people with stable careers may end up paying less than people who have been forced to relocate to find work. This system also discourages home sales, which artificially drives down supply, drives up sales prices, and thus further magnifies the regressive tax effects for those who are not yet homeowners or who are forced to move. Finally, Prop 13 also has benefited corporations at the expense of individuals, because Prop 13 isn't triggered if an entire shell corporation holding property is sold (as opposed to the shell corporation selling the property to another corporation).
The bottomline is that no one likes paying taxes, and there is a certain virtue to predictability. But too much locking down of property taxes ends up favoring not just the stereotypical house-poor senior, but also many wealthy people and corporations at the expense of young people or people forced to move. So, I would hesistate to adopt that system wholesale for Pittsburgh.
If you instead try to get at this problem through the roundabout manner of Proposition 13 and the like, what you end up doing is rewarding all long-term owners at the expense of all new owners, regardless of whether those long-term owners have low or high incomes relative the new owners. So, you fix some regressive effects, but can actually cause new ones.
Good point. The current system here (where School Districts successfully appeal assessments based on a recent sale) is kind of like Proposition 13, except in California they are up front about what is going to happen to your taxes after a sale. There is no surprise. But here in Allegheny County most newcomers have no idea what is going to hit them when the School District appeals their assessment until it is too late. It is a big surprise, and no one directly involved in a sale has an incentive to tell you (certainly not your Real Estate Agent).
Interestingly enough, the Uniformity Clause of the PA State Constitution prevents PA from having a Prop 13-like system. We would have to change the State Constitution to have it (this is something that Lynn Swann proposed in his failed bid for governor).
The other issue here in the County with the 2002 Base Year is that folks who own property in declining areas get stuck with 2002 assessments even though the value of their property has fallen below those values...
Good point. The current system here (where School Districts successfully appeal assessments based on a recent sale) is kind of like Proposition 13, except in California they are up front about what is going to happen to your taxes after a sale. There is no surprise. But here in Allegheny County most newcomers have no idea what is going to hit them when the School District appeals their assessment until it is too late. It is a big surprise, and no one directly involved in a sale has an incentive to tell you (certainly not your Real Estate Agent).
Interestingly, even though we own a house in the area I had no real idea what was going on until we just recently started looking to buy a new place, in part because we bought our current place in 2000. But I actually assumed the worse (that our purchase price on a new place would be our assessment), and I gather we at least have a chance to keep that from happening.
Anyway, the upshot is that the current lack of clarity and consistency is a real problem, regardless of the theoretical merits of the tax system. In fact, I really think at the end of the day that property taxes are not as big of a deal here as people tend to think, but it takes a very long and complex explanation to get there, and I wouldn't claim that the end result is necessarily going to be fair even if it is not too burdensome.
Anyway, the upshot is that the current lack of clarity and consistency is a real problem, regardless of the theoretical merits of the tax system. In fact, I really think at the end of the day that property taxes are not as big of a deal here as people tend to think, but it takes a very long and complex explanation to get there, and I wouldn't claim that the end result is necessarily going to be fair even if it is not too burdensome.
I agree with your first statement, but disagree with the rest. Allegheny County property taxes are a big deal and have been for over 37 years. Look at the long string of litigation this county has produced:
I agree with your first statement, but disagree with the rest. Allegheny County property taxes are a big deal and have been for over 37 years. Look at the long string of litigation this county has produced:
(and there are a lot more cases not listed...) Property taxes are the third rail of politics around here.
In part I think we are talking about two different things. You are correct that property taxes are a huge issue legally and politically. But I was talking about the impact of property taxes on people's finances, and property taxes here are not as high relative to comparable localities as the rates alone make them seem, thanks to the lower property prices.
By the way, legally and politically property taxes have been a big deal in many other places, including California. So even on those issues, I'm not sure Pittsburgh really has it much worse than average.
In part I think we are talking about two different things. You are correct that property taxes are a huge issue legally and politically. But I was talking about the impact of property taxes on people's finances, and property taxes here are not as high relative to comparable localities as the rates alone make them seem, thanks to the lower property prices.
I'm talking about both things, actually. We bought in 2003, and after the school district appealed us up to the purchase price we were paying several thousands of dollars more per year than we paid in NJ for the same sized house. It is not that unusual, especially if you buy a house in a nice area of Allegheny County where most of the houses are woefully underassessed relative to the fair market value.
As for lower property prices: it is a myth. The reason the average prices are low is because there are a large number of depressed properties you would never actually want to live in bringing the overall county averages down. If you just look at the affluent areas of the county, you will find that the prices there are not far out of line with other affluent areas of the country. This is where the high millages, underassessments, and school board appeals combine to take a real bite out of your personal finances.
I was certainly thinking of the statistics which are based on median incomes and home prices. So, if you restrict the issue only to the more expensive neighborhoods, you may well be right.
That said, I'm not sure that is right. For example, homes in expensive neighborhoods here are still a fraction of what they would cost in cities like NY, SF, LA, or DC (literally: I have priced it, and to get a home like the one we have now in a comparable neighborhood in DC would cost us around 2-3 times as much, and when you get to the nicest city neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and DC the multiple could be as much as 5-6 times). I also happen to know that comparable homes cost at least somewhat more in cities like Detroit, Portland (OR), and Denver (all places I have relatives). But I will admit I don't have comprehensive data on this specific market segment.
Finally, I'd note that for high-income people in particular, it really becomes a question of total taxes. For example, the flat PA income tax is actually somewhat low (except as compared to states with no income taxes, and many of them actually have pretty high property and/or sales taxes). As a result, high-income people in major cities in CA or NY are not only paying a lot more for their property, but also much higher state and local income taxes.
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