Real Estate Taxes and Tax Appeal Assessment Loopholes
Many times when blanket assessments are done on homes, the resulting values are inaccurate and a result of a ”quick fix” mentality. Often adjustments are made using a factor or multiplier to adjust values. Not that a blanket reappraisals accuracy is much better, because it also suffers from lack of diligence to detail.
Municipalities reappraise the homes within their borders by hiring blanket appraisal companies. This is done in a bidding process and the low bid wins. If the bid allocation was only $38 per home and the blanket appraiser needed to make a profit, how much time can actually be spent per home? The people the appraiser hires are time-pressed to make their observations.
Errors frequently occur when blanket appraisers do their job. Furthermore, if the original assessment was in error, employing multipliers to roll over previous years assessments is invalid.
An inexpensive fix for the town could come about if building inspectors and the tax department communicated closely by working together. If the building inspector passed on information to the assessor, there would be no need for blanket re-assessments. New homes sold need only be equalized with the previous blanket assessment. If an addition or home improvement took place, the added value could be passed on to the tax assessor. If the building department and tax department worked efficiently, there would be no need for blanket reassessments.
The department of the tax assessor is usually small and little time is available for the assessor. Rarely do they appraise a home personally. The tax assessor job is often a politically appointed position. Tax assessors do not take the time and are not generally trained to do a complete market appraisal of a home. Often they use a completely different method (cost method) of appraising a home.
In a property tax appeal, only the market appraisal counts. That means that your home stacks up to the current selling price of your comparable homes and that becomes the only solid evidence of value.
Blanket reassessments of homes are very expensive for a town; the cost is directly passed directly to the budget causing extra tax rate increases. Timely blanket reassessments are a rip off to the taxpayer and a waste of valuable time for all involved.
This spells out gigantic loopholes for homeowners. Doing a simple analysis of your home’s market value and seeing how it lines up with the appraised value can save thousands of dollars wasted on taxes.
Filed under: Business