"DAKSY" <rsmith13@nycap.rr.com> wrote:
> <> As far as the rice goes, I WISH Hondas ran on rice...<>
> I hear ya...My property assessment just went from $47K to $337K...I can't
> afford to pay taxes unless I go to work
> & I can't afford to fill my tank to GET to work...
Ouch. You should definitely fight that. I'm assuming your area
just went through a reval where they adjusted everybody's assessment?
If not, that was a spot assessment, which is illegal. Even with a
reval, you can go to the board of appeals to try to get a lower
assessment. (Sometimes you don't have to go in front of a board, you
can talk to the assessor directly and they may drop the amount on
their own.) Do your homework before you go before the board, either
by finding comparable properties to yours with lower assessments, (or
market values lower than your assessment). It would probably be worth
your while to have a (good) local real estate agent do a comparative
market analysis on your home. It might cost you $100-200, but if it
helps to drop the assessment, it will pay for itself many times over.
You may want to check around to see if you can find a local real
estate agent who has experience helping people to challenge their
assessments. If the town just did a reval, then they probably adjusted
their equalization rate back to 100%, in which case there should have
been a corresponding drop in the tax (mil) rate. If they did indeed
go back to a 100% equalization rate, then your assessment should be
equal to the current market value of your home (which is where the
comparative market analysis comes into play). If the rate is less
than 100%, then your assessment should be the current market value of
your home multiplied by the equalization rate.
Even if your current assessment is "fair", I'd still try to reduce
it, every little bit helps. Keep those dollars in your pocket instead
of letting the government waste 'em on stupid crap. :-)
Also, assuming your home is your primary residence, make sure you
are getting the STAR exemption. (It drops $30K worth of assessment off
the school tax portion of your property taxes. People 65 and older
who also fall below a certain income requirement can get enhanced STAR
which does the same thing as regular STAR, but the reduction is just
under $57K instead of $30K). How much STAR is worth to you will
depend on your local school district's tax rate. In our area, the
basic STAR exemption is worth somewhere around $800/year.
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger -- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| '96 Kolb Firefly, '96 Suzuki Intruder, Miscellaneous Mopars |
`-------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 01 2008 - 00:20:40 EDT