Tax Appeal and Tax Grievance Information for Consumers
Most municipalities in the United States rely upon property taxes as a key component of their revenue stream to support basic governmental functions and programs. These taxes are generally “ad valorem” taxes, or taxes that are based upon property value. The actual tax amount levied is based upon 1) the assessment placed on the property, 2) the tax rate, and 3) an individual property owner’s eligibility for various exemptions.
Regarding the third factor above, exemptions, individual property owners are wise to investigate their eligibility for those exemptions they may qualify for, such as Veteran’s exemptions, senior exemptions, and low income exemptions. There is little they can do to directly impact the second factor, the tax rate, other than become active in local political activity related to budget setting and governmental tax spending decisions.
The first factor above, property assessment, is where many people have their greatest opportunity to take actions that can lead to substantial savings in property taxes. Departments of assessment at all levels of local government (county, city, town, village) are charged with the task of determining the proper assessments based on their estimation of fair market value for the properties within their jurisdiction. This can be a daunting task under the best conditions.
But these are not the best of times with real estate values declining at historic rates in many areas and many municipal property assessors are faced with an overwhelming workload as their departments are downsized and tax grievances increase in number. Property assessments for millions of properties throughout the nation no longer reflect their current market value resulting in real estate tax overpayments totaling billions of dollars!
What steps can an individual property owner take to correct this problem and start paying lower property taxes, not only for this year but for years to come?
To begin with, each municipality has its own rules as local regulations differ as to things like taxable status dates, and documentation requirements, making an attempt at providing this information far beyond our capability. These rules also frequently change so it is important to contact your tax assessing jurisdiction for the most up-to-date information.
Property owners interested in grieving their tax assessments can generally do this on their own with some assistance from professionals, such as licensed or certified real estate appraisers, or they can utilize a tax grievance consulting firm. In some cases, attorneys might be needed (as with most commercial property tax certiorari cases) but otherwise property owners have a choice between filing the grievance themselves with some professional assistance (i.e. an appraiser) or delegating that task to a tax grievance or tax consulting service.
The ASC or Appraisal Subcommittee maintains a National Registry of the Nation’s State certified and licensed real estate appraisers. Certified General Real Estate Appraisers are qualified to appraise all types of real estate including both commercial and residential real estate while other license categories relate to residential property only. If you are interested in checking the licensing status of any appraiser found on Tax Grievance Appraisers.com, you can click here to access the National Registry:
Appraiser Help, Inc., developers of Tax Grievance Appraisers.com, verifies the licensing status of the appraisers who advertise on this site at the time of their enrollment. It is recommended that when consumers contact appraisers on our site as to possibly engaging their services, they not only interview them as to their competency for that geographic area, property type, etc. but confirm their current licensing status.
Some of the appraisers listed on Tax Grievance Appraisers.com also provide additional services such as tax grievance or tax consulting services where they may work on a contingent fee or other basis. Many municipalities require licenses for those who operate in this capacity and it is important that consumers verify the current licensing requirements for their particular municipality and whether an individual or firm is properly licensed. The tens of thousands of assessing jurisdictions found in the United States make this task impossible for a national service such as Tax Grievance Appraisers.com and place responsibility with the consumer to make that determination for themselves.
We at Appraiser Help, Inc. sincerely hope that you find our site www.taxgrievanceappraisers.com valuable. Please contact us if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns.
Also, please note that additional information and links to sites that may be of interest to you are found in the “Appraiser Resources” section of our site. Thank you.