Real estate tax appeal

[MB24 37]

Anyone have experience with appealing your real eastate taxes. Been in touch with a real estate attorney and here are my options

1- $100 filing fee, $175 for obtaining real estate comps, 1/2 of what I'm saved the first year for attorney fees.

2- $100 filing fee, $600 for a professional appraiser, 1/2 of first year savings to attorney.

 

I'm told he has a 90% success rate for both but a better chance of getting more with the appraiser but not how more.

 

Anyone have experience doing this and using the realtor VS the appraiser?

[djg0770 481]

You can do this by yourself successfully. All of this information is public record.

[chris327 30]

ive sat in on the hearings before and it depends on the town from what i noticed. Some towns if you have comps they just drop your value and move people in and out. others fight everyone and make everyone go to a board hearing about it. People with the appraiser did have a little bit of an easier time, but there was still the problem of some towns saying no to everyone and making it go to a board.

[Metalflames 0]

Yep my dad did it. Apparently short sales and foreclosures in the neighborhood don't count as comparable.

[MB24 37]

Tried it myself one time , didn't work out so well. We have an unusual piece of property and it was hard to get comps. I figured for the cost it's worth it. Neighbor did it with the realtor deal and had their taxes lowered $2800, $1400 to the lawyer. Just wondering if it's worth paying the extra for the appraiser.

[Anselmo 87]

I talked to an attorney about it. Was told that the town gets to be within 15% accuracy in their assessment. So basically, find out what the town assessed your home's value at, subtract 15% and see if it's worth less than that by looking at recent sales in your neighborhood. That will give you a good idea if you'll be successful.

[Night Prowler 0]

I did it about 15 years ago. I had just bought the house so it was pretty easy. I needed 3 comps and what I paid for my house. Met with the tax accessor and gave her the information. They reviewed the information and a few days later denied the reassessment. I told them that's fine I will see you in court. She called back that afternoon with a settlement that was only $2,500 off from what I was asking. It was worth doing for me and cost me nothing to do.

[ryan_j 0]

Our town was hammered with appeals so they just dropped a bunch of people's assessment. They didn't even have to appeal. My tax bill went down by about 2k.

[bry@n 195]

I've done this and ready to do it again. I did it myself and I used a local hometown realtor to pull comps.

 

Cost was $100 and $100 for comps. I won the appeal but it took some time and some calls. Not much though.

[Bowling Ball 22]

My house is still assessed for about 100k total land and dwelling... It sold for 300k last year.

 

Should I file?

[scohen2002 0]

I've done this myself without an attorney and won in east brunswick. If you have a clear cut case i would do it yourself, if your case is not clear cut i would talk to an attorney. Here is what makes a case clear cut or not.

• Your town assigns your house (and it's land) an assessed value for this example let's say its $135,000
  
• The town itself has a ratio which represents how far off from reality their assessments are for this examples let's say the towns ratio is 39% (.39)
  
• Your pay taxes on the value calculated by the town's assessment divided by their ratio, in this example $135,000 / .39 which is $346,000
  
• The fair market value is what your house would sell for today, let's say for arguments sake its $275,000
  
• If the taxed value (which you are being taxed on) is off by the fair market value by more than 15% the state law is that the town must re-asses you. If you are within 15% the law does not force them to do anything.
  
• So if you house is worth anything less than $294,000 (which is 15% off of $346,00) you have a clear case and could probably appeal and win, if you house was worth anything more than $294,000 you probably won't win
  

If you want to appeal you can get a form from your town, and then file it with your county and a copy to your town. You can fill this out yourself by providing either an official appraisal of your own house or just 3 comparable sales from within the past 6 months. If your case is obvious the town will just offer to settle with you and just adjust your assessment, if they don't agree they will take you to court and it could go either way.

[ryan_j 0]

My house is still assessed for about 100k total land and dwelling... It sold for 300k last year.

 

Should I file?

 

I'm surprised your town didn't reassess it shortly after the sale.

[Kingsoverqueens 10]

I challanged mine a few years ago. I used the online public data system for recent sales and then a realtor friend helped me by providing me the listings of those homes so that I had more data about the house. I was very prepared when I went to the board and crushed the trial...so much so that people actually followed me out into the hallway to tell me how well I did. I actually trapped the towns appraiser and even got the "judge" for lack of a better term to smirk.

 

I got the letter a week later telling my I was denied.

 

I appealed, and went to Trenton. My first date was ajourned because the judge was sick. The second hearing the judge and town attorney were surprised I was doing this on my own and suggested that I hire a professional. By the time the 3rd hearing came the town attorney called my house to discuss. He told me I was going to lose because I didn't have a professional, and he offered a very small concession. I told him no. He told me the judge is going to rule in our favor (the town) and isn't going to allow for any more continuances. I told him no.

 

The day before the trial I faxed a very humble letter to to judge, falling on my sword for procrastinating, and asking for more time to hire a pro. She granted it. I didn't call the town attorney, wanting him to cringe when he got to court. The following day he called me again, this time having to eat crow because I had successfully gotten a continuance, something he said wouldn't happen.

 

We negotiated and I got a little less than half of what I was looking for in concession. I offered to split it down the middle and we wound up settleing for something like 60/40.

 

I enjoyed the process, but truth be told, I think you are better served with the combo of the engineer and lawyer. A judge friend of mine commented that when you go in with licensed professionals their word is taken automatically as fact, whereas my comments were opinions.

[bzer1 15]

Our town was hammered with appeals so they just dropped a bunch of people's assessment. They didn't even have to appeal. My tax bill went down by about 2k.

 

Same here, but I'm afraid that this is simply a trap. They dropped the assessments(using zillow) and are working on a new(higher) rate. In a couple years when they are clear to reassess, and the market is better, they will send out an army of appraisers and tax at the new higher rate with the higher assessment. So you may see a few hundred bucks lower taxes right now but watch out when they reval. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like a typical NJ political bait and switch.

[djg0770 481]

My house is still assessed for about 100k total land and dwelling... It sold for 300k last year.

 

Should I file?

 

Your case is more involved as now you not only need real estate "comps" to show what your house is worth, you have to check the comps assessed value against yours. My towns tax base is equally skewed. If I want to appeal I would need to gather the tax rate of similar homes in my area (again all public record, and in my town it's all online) and use that as your basis because actual house sales do you no good since they haven't reassessed everyone in a very long time - at least in my town they haven't.

[bobblackrifle 28]

I've done this myself without an attorney and won in east brunswick. If you have a clear cut case i would do it yourself, if your case is not clear cut i would talk to an attorney. Here is what makes a case clear cut or not.

• Your town assigns your house (and it's land) an assessed value for this example let's say its $135,000
  
• The town itself has a ratio which represents how far off from reality their assessments are for this examples let's say the towns ratio is 39% (.39)
  
• Your pay taxes on the value calculated by the town's assessment divided by their ratio, in this example $135,000 / .39 which is $346,000
  
• The fair market value is what your house would sell for today, let's say for arguments sake its $275,000
  
• If the taxed value (which you are being taxed on) is off by the fair market value by more than 15% the state law is that the town must re-asses you. If you are within 15% the law does not force them to do anything.
  
• So if you house is worth anything less than $294,000 (which is 15% off of $346,00) you have a clear case and could probably appeal and win, if you house was worth anything more than $294,000 you probably won't win
  

If you want to appeal you can get a form from your town, and then file it with your county and a copy to your town. You can fill this out yourself by providing either an official appraisal of your own house or just 3 comparable sales from within the past 6 months. If your case is obvious the town will just offer to settle with you and just adjust your assessment, if they don't agree they will take you to court and it could go either way.

 

Very good summary. However,15% window does not apply in a revaluation or reassesment year.

[ryan_j 0]

Same here, but I'm afraid that this is simply a trap. They dropped the assessments(using zillow) and are working on a new(higher) rate. In a couple years when they are clear to reassess, and the market is better, they will send out an army of appraisers and tax at the new higher rate with the higher assessment. So you may see a few hundred bucks lower taxes right now but watch out when they reval. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like a typical NJ political bait and switch.

 

If they do that they'll have a mass revolt. They didn't reassess the whole town. They only did a few select areas which were supposedly overvalued to begin with.

 

They had a big re-assessment in 2005 or so I think it was which is how everyone's assessments and taxes went way up.

 

They only did this because everyone was appealing their assessments and they were getting hammered so they just lowered the assessments. They wanted to do a town wide reassessment but the state said they did not qualify.