1000SqFt Retirement/ Tax Accessor

[finn]

Yes, and until the appraising entity revalues the property he hasn’t “been caught”. He is waiting for the system to do what it does. I don’t know anyone who goes down to the appraisal district and says “hey, I added value to my property. Please raise my taxes”.

That’s why most places have countywide reappraisals periodically. People hate them, but it’s one way to keep things somewhat equitable.

 

[logical]

I always thought it would be interesting to see the property tax assessments for the people who work at the Twp and on the Twp board.

That isn't hard if you are really curious. In my township I could do it from my couch.

 

[Rc_Guy]

That isn't hard if you are really curious. In my township I could do it from my couch.

Same here, every address in the county is on the beacon website.

 

[tez929rr]

Same here, every address in the county is on the beacon website.

Same here. With details and payment history. Our county has just under 50K people and the appraisal district has about 1000 lawsuits each year.

 

[tez929rr]

Just some local detail. In our county taxing entities (there are 10) contract with the appraisal district to do appraisals and collect the taxes. The board is seven people selected by the taxing entities (weighted by the tax collection amounts), so the board represents the taxing entities, not the taxpayers. In our county, one school district gets three seats, another smaller district gets one, the county gets one, and the one incorporated city gets one. The other entities share the last one. In some smaller counties and cities the thing entities do their own appraisals and collections. Most years the state comptroller analyzes the appraisal values and determines if they are fair or not.

 

[finn]

Same here. With details and payment history. Our county has just under 50K people and the appraisal district has about 1000 lawsuits each year.

I’m sure 1000 lawsuits per year go a long way to keeping taxes down and providing great public services.

 

[Youngandfree]

They do that in TX. Unless your property is gated/posted, they'll walk right up.

I stopped an assessor who was walking around my barn, he identified himself. I could have asked him to leave, but that's really not going to solve the problem long term. They can "assess" for satellite and if you don't let them look at it, they "may assume" it's residential.

They also pull plans from permits, so there are various ways to figure out what you're building / changing.

I've had "substantial" disputes with the local assessor when they assess a residential structure at "100% complete" and it's really just being dried in. Resolve with photos/date of construction, etc.

But yea, it's a constant battle around here

My pint was if he filed a permit they knew he was building something so why was he shocked someone showed up.

 

[MushCreek]

I would assume that every jurisdiction has their own rules and ways of assessing. We weren't assessed until we got our final inspection and certificate of occupancy. They were out the very next day, but they told me they were coming. They didn't look inside at all; they just dragged a tape measure to make sure that the outside of the house matched the as-built drawings I provided. They don't need blueprints to build a house, either. You fill out a one page application, pay the nice lady a few hundred bucks, and you're good to go. They do require a drawing of the finished house, but it can be a rough pencil sketch, as long as it shows the outside dimensions. I'm sure as this area develops, the rules will get tougher, and the costs will go up- a lot.

 

[john.k]

No need for entry any more ...all the inspectors have drones ,saves them being shot and eat up by dogs..............as to satellite pics ,most authorities get aeriel pics from drone services ,as satellite is too costly.................when I ran afoul of the council ,i discovered they could provide pics of my land taken twice every 24 hrs....... actually did provide a number of high res pics as evidence in the court documents.

 

[My Old Tools]

Texas does not have income tax, so property tax rate is much higher and that generates the income needed for schools, etc. The have been using aerial means to verify property changes for many years. It is one cost of living that I don't think many folks realize until they move there and get the first property tax assessment and bill.

Unless things have changed, Texas car insurance rates are also quite high (my car insurance dropped about 40% when I moved from Texas to Virginia), which I could never understand.

One common "tax dodge" I saw in Texas was that when you built a nice house on a ranch you fenced the house right in with the livestock grazing area. My understanding was that if you fenced it off separately, then it was taxed as a residential house. If you did not, it was part of the ranch and taxed at a lower rate.

wrong, the residence is taxed as a residence either way. You can declare a small lot as residential, and the rest as ag of course, but the residential part is taxed like everyone else. Been there and done that.

 

[My Old Tools]

One recent issue is that property insurance companies review wildfire risk and either cancel coverage or raise rates accordingly. Like the leaves in gutters mentioned above or trees too close to structures. We encounter properties where we can’t get fire apparatus anywhere close to the structure.

We had the Texas Forest Service/TAMU come out give the Firewise assessment. We also had the local fire department come out and get familiar with our area and gate system.

 

[gregs]

FWIW I built an inground concrete swimming pool 15+ years ago. Went thru permitting, inspections, the whole shebang. At the end of the project I had the receipts to show that I had about 15k total in the project because labor was mostly free. Its a nice pool with concrete paver deck, swim shelf, and a pebble type surface. Next year I get a hit on my property taxes for more than I thought. I talk to the appraiser about the situation and show him my spreadsheet and the receipts for materials. He basically says thats great but it gets appraised at the comparable value if I hired a contractor to build it. Pissed me off but there was nothing else I could do.

 

[My Old Tools]

Sure, but saying Google can blur the area on request is irrelevant to the actual issue. No self respecting gis/planning/tax office is using Google earth. Which is really just inexpensive digital globe /maxar imagery other agencies already paid for.

You don't need drones or stereoscopic air photos to measure a roof, when there is a plethora of sources that already exist whose business model is this very topic. ESRI will happily sell the local assessors office a subscription for the imagery, software and IT support that's ready to go out of the box.

Google Earth is actually quite accurate. We have used it for military purposes. We were a licensed developer.

 

[My Old Tools]

I doubt any of this is done in real time. Probably every few years at best, unless it’s a high growth area.

That’s just a guess, though.

All of it can be done real time. We did it for military systems years ago. It's all commercially available now.

 

[My Old Tools]

Texas assessments are strictly based on comps. Market value is the state law. Selling prices are reported by realtors. Most deeds in Texas don't have selling prices but use the phrase "$1 and other valuable considerations". Sales that don't use a realtor don't get reported, and there is no requirement to do so.

 

[jar944]

Google Earth is actually quite accurate. We have used it for military purposes. We were a licensed developer.

Hopefully as a secondary or tertiary source.

At one time, areal surveys were used, but that technology has been obsolete fot probably twenty or more years.

Aerial surveys are still done, though it's a lot more lidar than optical imagery today. Planimetric surveys and orthophotos at a something like 2.5cm resolution need a higher resolution image than .5m commercial satellites provide.

 

[PoorUB]

FWIW I built an inground concrete swimming pool 15+ years ago. Went thru permitting, inspections, the whole shebang. At the end of the project I had the receipts to show that I had about 15k total in the project because labor was mostly free. Its a nice pool with concrete paver deck, swim shelf, and a pebble type surface. Next year I get a hit on my property taxes for more than I thought. I talk to the appraiser about the situation and show him my spreadsheet and the receipts for materials. He basically says thats great but it gets appraised at the comparable value if I hired a contractor to build it. Pissed me off but there was nothing else I could do.

Well, that is reasonable!

If you build a house, all by yourself, and have $150,000 into it, but if you sold it it would be worth $300,000. If you had a contractor build the home you would have $300,000 into it. Why would you expect to be taxed on what you have into it, versus the home actual value? Would you sell the home to someone for what you have into it instead of $300,000?

I inherited a home from my dad's estate. It didn't cost me anything. Now the county wants to tax me at the home's value of $300,000! it isn't fair!

 

[jar944]

FWIW I built an inground concrete swimming pool 15+ years ago. Went thru permitting, inspections, the whole shebang. At the end of the project I had the receipts to show that I had about 15k total in the project because labor was mostly free. Its a nice pool with concrete paver deck, swim shelf, and a pebble type surface. Next year I get a hit on my property taxes for more than I thought. I talk to the appraiser about the situation and show him my spreadsheet and the receipts for materials. He basically says thats great but it gets appraised at the comparable value if I hired a contractor to build it. Pissed me off but there was nothing else I could do.

Lol

Here sale price of home is not used as the assessed value, eventhoughits called "fair market value."

I was assessed 200k over what I paid the same year I bought my current house. Their response "you got a good deal" I fought it and had it dropped to only 80k over what I paid.

 

[gregs]

Well, that is reasonable!

If you build a house, all by yourself, and have $150,000 into it, but if you sold it it would be worth $300,000. If you had a contractor build the home you would have $300,000 into it. Why would you expect to be taxed on what you have into it, versus the home actual value? Would you sell the home to someone for what you have into it instead of $300,000?

I inherited a home from my dad's estate. It didn't cost me anything. Now the county wants to tax me at the home's value of $300,000! it isn't fair!

First I wasnt selling the house and I am still there. Second, the gain on the house is going to be made when I sell it one day and am pretty sure they wont miss that opportunity to raise the taxes for the next person. Third, I dont see them coming back and reassessing it when it needs a 10K resurface.

I'm not a schmuck and understand what your saying and how the process works. Have interest in 8-10 properties including commercial. Its been demonstrated that a pool is not always a $$ gain on a residential property and can sometimes adversely affect its value. Its not like I added another bedroom or bathroom. My point is, here is a guy that built a pool cash out of pocket to his own personal property and can prove his costs, why not take a few minutes to review things and use a brain to adjust the value accordingly. Its not like its going to be thousands of dollars difference in property tax money, probably only a few hundred if that.

 

[dcg9381]

Texas assessments are strictly based on comps.

Pfft. Their "comps" are computer generated matches. I've literally had a tax swing of 400% on unimproved property in one year and when you ask for the "evidence packet" it did not have a single comp. They had no comps because there were no sales. They used "Z-value" (which apparently some other method of generalizing lot size and acreage across ALL property types). I protested, pointed out that the zoning had been changed (literally brought in the City's documentation on it) - the board "disagreed" and said that their zoning was right. I lost that year, but won the same in the next year with a different board. It's friggin' wild west, and this is a 400% swing without a homestead.

I'm not saying you're wrong about comps in general. In most cases they "comp" residential and there are obvious and good comparisons. But this stuff is auto-generated and it's not looked at by a human unless you protest.

Market value is the state law. Selling prices are reported by realtors. Most deeds in Texas don't have selling prices but use the phrase "$1 and other valuable considerations". Sales that don't use a realtor don't get reported, and there is no requirement to do so.

In my county, MLS is a "private data" system and Realtors do not report sales prices to the county. They report them to MLS. And MLS's data provider, in violation of a contract with Board of Realtors was selling the data to the state under the covers. In my county they lost all ability to comp when someone sued over this issue (for a year).

If Realtors reported sales prices to the county, you could count on your first year assessment being the same as your sales price and that's often not the case. You can use your sales contract to dispute an over-assessment. IMHO, it's also a "privacy problem" if everyone knows what you paid for you home (property tax assessments are public).

 

[My Old Tools]

If Realtors reported sales prices to the county, you could count on your first year assessment being the same as your sales price and that's often not the case. You can use your sales contract to dispute an over-assessment. IMHO, it's also a "privacy problem" if everyone knows what you paid for you home (property tax assessments are public).

That is exactly the case here. Our first year I protested with a ton of comps. They used the argument that "what a willing buyer pays a willing seller" has to be market value.

 

[dcg9381]

I inherited a home from my dad's estate. It didn't cost me anything. Now the county wants to tax me at the home's value of $300,000! it isn't fair!

Outside of TX, there are ways to keep exemptions (like homestead) on inherited properties. Doing a little planning can save a ridculous amount of money versus looking at an "uncapped" assessment. I believe you can do this in TX too via a trust, but not sure about the details.

 

[My Old Tools]

There are homestead exemptions here. After a state law change two years ago, it's worth $100,000 off of your value. There is nothing special about placing it into a trust in Texas, it still gets market value assessment. Homestead applies if you live in it fulltime as of assessment time. All but one tax entity here caps your tax bill at age 65. New assessments or tax rate changes don't raise your bill. Improvements still can.

 

[dcg9381]

There are homestead exemptions here. After a state law change two years ago, it's worth $100,000 off of your value. There is nothing special about placing it into a trust in Texas, it still gets market value assessment. Homestead applies if you live in it fulltime as of assessment time. All but one tax entity here caps your tax bill at age 65. New assessments or tax rate changes don't raise your bill. Improvements still can.

It's not so much the homestead exemption, it's that the homestead limits the increase of taxable assessments to 10% per year. My home is not in a trust, but I know people whose homes are.. It prevents an ownership "change" that would un-cap the assessment. (At least as I understand it)

It's that "assessment cap" that is valuable here and in other states (like Michigan). Michigan may have another word for it, but if you don't do the estate planning, your kids may be looking at big property tax increases.

 

[PoorUB]

Lol

Here sale price of home is not used as the assessed value, eventhoughits called "fair market value."

I was assessed 200k over what I paid the same year I bought my current house. Their response "you got a good deal" I fought it and had it dropped to only 80k over what I paid.

Tax appraisal is generally never what a house is worth. For taxed, my house is appraised at $175,000. I was offered $275,000 for it a year ago.

 

[zendriver]

First I wasnt selling the house and I am still there. Second, the gain on the house is going to be made when I sell it one day and am pretty sure they wont miss that opportunity to raise the taxes for the next person. Third, I dont see them coming back and reassessing it when it needs a 10K resurface.

I'm not a schmuck and understand what your saying and how the process works. Have interest in 8-10 properties including commercial. Its been demonstrated that a pool is not always a $$ gain on a residential property and can sometimes adversely affect its value. Its not like I added another bedroom or bathroom. My point is, here is a guy that built a pool cash out of pocket to his own personal property and can prove his costs, why not take a few minutes to review things and use a brain to adjust the value accordingly. Its not like its going to be thousands of dollars difference in property tax money, probably only a few hundred if that.

If tax assessors based rates only on selling prices, the county would be broke.

A pool adds value and that's what they added the tax on.

Whatever maintenance costs are involved are meaningless.

 

[jar944]

Tax appraisal is generally never what a house is worth. For taxed, my hosluse is appraised at $175,000. I was offered $275,000 for it a year ago.

Right, usually assessment value is behind fair market.

However if the house is sold on the open market for 500k and assessed for 700k 3 months later, it's hard to argue that its based on fair market.

 

[PoorUB]

Its not like its going to be thousands of dollars difference in property tax money, probably only a few hundred if that.

A few hundred in taxes, here and there adds up fast in a city.
The tax assessor was simply doing his job.

 

[dcg9381]

Right, usually assessment value is behind fair market. However if the house is sold on the open market for 500k and assessed for 700k 3 months later, it's hard to argue that its based on fair market.

Which is to our advantage when the market is appreciating, but when it declines, it stings.
I agree if you had an "open market sale" recently, I agree, that's fair market value... 100%. If they tax you over that, you use the contract to dispute it. However, the county/state should NOT have this data.

In Texas, Realtor sales data (MLS data), data is private:

"....representing consumers, our members have clearly expressed that ACTRIS should not provide home sales data to the government.
Individual homeowners are welcome to provide that information to their appraisal district by providing the sales price of their property when it’s requested. "

Course, if you have mortgage, that is probably a public document.

 

[PCustoms]

^^^sales in TX aren't reported to the county?

Around here they are, as part of transferring the deed and tax information etc.

 

[jar944]

Which is to our advantage when the market is appreciating, but when it declines, it stings.
I agree if you had an "open market sale" recently, I agree, that's fair market value... 100%. If they tax you over that, you use the contract to dispute it. However, the county/state should NOT have this data.

In Texas, Realtor sales data (MLS data), data is private:

"....representing consumers, our members have clearly expressed that ACTRIS should not provide home sales data to the government.
Individual homeowners are welcome to provide that information to their appraisal district by providing the sales price of their property when it’s requested. "

Course, if you have mortgage, that is probably a public document.

In Virginia it's recorded, public and published.

As for the assessment, as I posted above the response (after I showed the sale, bank appraisal and comps) during the dispute meeting with the assessors office was "we think you got a good deal" that knocked 100k off the assessment..if I wanted the other 100k I had to go to court.

 

[tez929rr]

^^^sales in TX aren't reported to the county?

Around here they are, as part of transferring the deed and tax information etc.

No.

 

[logical]

Same here. With details and payment history. Our county has just under 50K people and the appraisal district has about 1000 lawsuits each year.

Lawsuits or people going through the dispute process?

 

[tez929rr]

Lawsuits or people going through the dispute process?

Legal action. People file with the court. 80% are filed by the same law firm. In most cases people are paying for a lawyer to get an adjustment that they could (probably) get on their own.

The review process is way more than 1000 every year. Lots of commercial property fighting, too. Last year the three biggest commercial places in the county wanted to fight - WalMart, HEB (grocery store) and Home Depot. Spending tax money on attorneys is a bad practice, so almost nothing ever goes to trial.

 

[astrohip]

Texas assessments are strictly based on comps. Market value is the state law. Selling prices are reported by realtors. Most deeds in Texas don't have selling prices but use the phrase "$1 and other valuable considerations". Sales that don't use a realtor don't get reported, and there is no requirement to do so.

Absolutely not. In TX, property sales $$ are private business, and not reported to any state entity.

 

[My Old Tools]

Absolutely not. In TX, property sales $$ are private business, and not reported to any state entity.

That may be the desire, but the simple fact is, they are reported. You can even find them online on many websites. How do you think realtors pull comps when they want to list your house?

 

[HoosierMark]

Elmer in Indiana they are public records you can access from home you can check anytime you like. I deal a lot with assessors. All the ones I know do their best to avoid any favoritism. But I know that is not the case everywhere.

 

[dcg9381]

I’m sure 1000 lawsuits per year go a long way to keeping taxes down and providing great public services.

I looked at the statistics in my county and roughly 50% of property owners protest, which is almost 200,000 protest per year.

The infrastructure deployed by the county to service this level of protest is fairly massive.

The success rate for the "informal" process is over 70%, meaning 70% of people get some sort of reduction. Might be $1, might be $1M.
I looked at actual examples this year where a $2M assessment was reduced by $1M. That's a massive amount of tax money.

Going to a formal protest (which requires putting a deposit down to have the case heard) the success rate is 48%.

Statewide 60% is the average overall success rate.

Draw your own conclusions from that. There is a "very healthy" 3rd party industry around this that will "protest for you" for a cut of the reduction. You can do it yourself, but I've found that it's a roll of the dice depending on what arbitration board you get. They are not lawyers, so they don't know property tax law and can choose to ignore anything that you provide.. And I mean anything, they wouldn't accept city re-zoning documentation on my property. Stated reason "GIS data says different" (GIS data lags).

That may be the desire, but the simple fact is, they are reported. You can even find them online on many websites. How do you think realtors pull comps when they want to just your house?

They are reported to a privately owned system, which is how Realtors keep a their "lock" on brokering property and keep income flowing into the system. Want a "comp" - you need a Realtor. Want to list a property in their system, you pay a fee and/or need a Realtor.

What you see reported on many websites here is "asking price". IE - Zillow/Redfin may give a "sales estimate" but the actual selling price of the property is kept within the MLS system and is not publicly reported. You'll see "sold" but the sales price is not provided, just the asking price.

In my state it was illegal to sell this data outside of that private system. My county partnered with the underlying data services provider and did it anyway:




This isn't "conspiracy theory" - it's actual data and various counties doing illegal things.

 

[Innovate1]

When I lived in Illinois, assessment was based on comparables. In Cook County, with resident every 3 years, there were quite a few business who would file assesment appeals. Typically they'd charge 1/2 of one years savings. Lived there 30 years and used same guy, and always got some reduction. Sometimes significant.

Here in NY state law is assessment is market value. It appears they do a decent job. Last year was reassment and of course ours went up post pandemic. The treat was taxes went down, because of other construction and others with greater increases.

We are in Illinois and tried an appeal and had comps. As I recall we got a small reduction the first year and then a raise the next so it appeared to give only a small reduction for 1 year. Never heard of businesses for appeals but that's an interesting thing. There is an 80 foot deep ravine that runs through the property and they consider all the land area the same - no reduction in the rate for what cannot be used for building.

 

[finn]

I looked at the statistics in my county and roughly 50% of property owners protest, which is almost 200,000 protest per year.

The infrastructure deployed by the county to service this level of protest is fairly massive.

The success rate for the "informal" process is over 70%, meaning 70% of people get some sort of reduction. Might be $1, might be $1M.
I looked at actual examples this year where a $2M assessment was reduced by $1M. That's a massive amount of tax money.

Going to a formal protest (which requires putting a deposit down to have the case heard) the success rate is 48%.

Statewide 60% is the average overall success rate.

Draw your own conclusions from that. There is a "very healthy" 3rd party industry around this that will "protest for you" for a cut of the reduction. You can do it yourself, but I've found that it's a roll of the dice depending on what arbitration board you get. They are not lawyers, so they don't know property tax law and can choose to ignore anything that you provide.. And I mean anything, they wouldn't accept city re-zoning documentation on my property. Stated reason "GIS data says different" (GIS data lags).


They are reported to a privately owned system, which is how Realtors keep a their "lock" on brokering property and keep income flowing into the system. Want a "comp" - you need a Realtor. Want to list a property in their system, you pay a fee and/or need a Realtor.

What you see reported on many websites here is "asking price". IE - Zillow/Redfin may give a "sales estimate" but the actual selling price of the property is kept within the MLS system and is not publicly reported. You'll see "sold" but the sales price is not provided, just the asking price.

In my state it was illegal to sell this data outside of that private system. My county partnered with the underlying data services provider and did it anyway:




This isn't "conspiracy theory" - it's actual data and various counties doing illegal things.

Pretty much the poster child of a corrupt system.

There’s really no value added to society if all this is true. Just churning money.