Jordan Goodman is the author of Everyone's Money Book, available at 888-201-6300. This is the third edition of the book. You can also visit his Web site at www.moneyanswers.com. He talks with us on Thursday mornings.

October 31, 2002

"Protesting Your Property Tax Assessment"

Local governments are taking advantage of soaring home prices to get as much revenue from higher property tax assessments as possible. As a result, local governments took in $261 billion in property taxes in 2001, versus $245 billion in 2000. The National Taxpayers Union estimates that 60 percent of taxable residential property is over-assessed. Real estate taxes are usually 1.5 to 2 percent of your home’s value.

To protest the assessment:
1. Make sure the assessor has the facts straight, such as the amount of acreage, the right numbers of rooms, the correct building type, etc. Many assessments are made without ever looking in your house, so they often have the facts wrong.

2. Compare your house to similar ones in your neighborhood.

3. Here are a few Web sites that can help you get a good sense of home values in your neighborhood:
   * www.homegain.com
   * http://www.homeadvisor.msn.com
   * http://www.domania.com/homepricecheck/index.jsp
   Or you can go www.Realtor.com, or your local real estate agent to get prices of what comparable houses have sold for recently. If you can show that similar houses have sold for a lot less, you may have a good case. This is particularly true for houses that may have shot up in value over the last few years, but are coming down now because of the economy’s slide.

4. When protesting your assessment, emphasize the negative. Detail structural problems or termites, or the fact that you are on a busy street. The more you can show your house is worth less, the better. If your house has been hit by a natural disaster, like a tornado, hurricane or flood, make sure to show the damage that was done.

5. You can carry out the protest yourself or hire a specialist to do it. If you have the time and inclination to do it, you can file the protest and show up at the board meeting discussing your assessment to make the case. You should research carefully the assessments of similar houses in your area to see that you are out of line before you make the case before the board. Or, you can hire a certiorari lawyer who specializes in protesting property tax assessments. They usually work on contingency, meaning they only get paid if they win a rate reduction. They will, typically, take one–third to one-half of the savings you achieve in the first year of paying property taxes; you get to keep all the savings in subsequent years. If they don’t get any reductions, you don’t have to pay them anything. They will give you a free appraisal of whether they think they can get a reassessment in your case.

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