Sunday, January 6, 2008

Can I do this? A property tax question

There was an article in this Sunday's edition of Parade magazine titled "Feel Secure About Your Money" by Lynn Brenner. This article was something of a nothingburger to me. It had one absolutely ridiculous section about preparing for emergencies in these "uncertain economic times." The article doesn't say a WORD about saving any money, it just advises that you open a home equity line of credit in case your financial world goes sour. Just what I want when I get into a bad way financially- more debt. This woman must be one of those broke finance professors that Dave talks about.
On the other hand, she did write something that I'd never heard of. She writes:
If you bought your house in 2005 or 2006 in an area where values have since plummeted, petition your county tax board to reduce your property taxes. If you can show that the house is assessed at more than it's current value, you may trim your tax bill.

Does anyone out there know anything about this? I pay almost $2000 yearly in property taxes, so if there's a way to cut the bill I wanna know about it. If any one has ever done this, or can shed light on this subject in any way, I would really be interested in hearing about it.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi SheGazelle, my best guess is that you would first need to get your home appraised again to determine that the worth of your home is in fact depleating (which would run your around $500), and then write a petition to your county tax board. Your taxes are based on a percentage of the worth of your property, so if you prove that your property is worth less, then taxes shoule be adjusted accordingly.