There are many costs associated with owning a home. Mortgages, homeowners’ insurance, utilities, care and maintenance, and of course property taxes. While property taxes do serve an important purpose, keeping as much of your hard earned money as you can also serves an important purpose. It is entirely possible that you are currently paying more than your fair share of property taxes, and there are things that you can do to get your property tax bill adjusted so that you pay no more and no less than you ought to.
In a perfect world, your home would be reassessed as often as property tax bills are calculated. However, assessments are expensive and municipalities are unable to have properties assessed that frequently. Most homes are reassessed every two to three years. If you think that this should suffice, think carefully about the ups and downs of the real estate market. A lot has happened over the past few years, and if your home has decreased in value, which many have, its assessed value may be too high. This translates into a larger property tax bill than you should be paying.
Fortunately, property tax bills can be appealed. If you are now groaning and thinking that it is better to grin and bear it until you get assessed again rather than try to scrape together enough money to hire an attorney to do your property tax appeal for you, don’t tune out just yet. Regular people successfully appeal their own property tax bills all the time, and you can find some useful information online to help you. Some web sites that I have seen that deal with property taxes are EasyTaxFix.com, LowerMyAssessment.com, and ValueAppeal.com. Although these sites do not offer free assistance, the fees may be a small investment compared to what you end up saving on your property taxes if your appeal is successful. Like most things, appealing your property taxes entails some degree of risk as well as time and money. Only you can decide for yourself if it is worth it to appeal your property taxes.