As you may know, I run a property tax appeal website for property owners in the Greater Sacramento Region. I help home owners dispute their property taxes when it makes good economic sense for them to do so (only if there is a savings to be had). I mention this because I am very pleased to have learned last week that the Sacramento County Assessor reduced my own property taxes by $36,622 after viewing the evidence I presented for a lowered opinion of value. They agreed with my value and the tax refund will be roughly $350.
This is not a huge sum of money. There are certainly clients that will save $10,000+ because of the work my company provides. Yet at the same time, every dollar counts and I’d much rather save $350 than relinquish my hard-earned greenbacks to the local Assessor.
The wild thing is that these were property taxes for 2008. I turned in the Application for Changed Assessment in November 2009 and the Assessor just got back to me about these taxes last week – sixteen months later.
If you think you are a good candidate for lowering your property taxes, then it’s important to take action before the deadline for appealing property taxes comes (that’s either September 15 or November 30 depending on which county you live in). Had I not actually formally disputed my own taxes in November 2009, I would have been out of luck, and the Assessor would not be cutting me a check. I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of getting checks in the mail.
I’m happy to answer any questions. Give me a call at 916-595-3735 or shoot me an email at ryan@SacramentoTaxAppeals.com.
Ryan, Congrats on the reduction. Any savings is a good thing these days. I was curious…assuming that you needed to provide an appraisal with your appeal (as we typically do in PA), did you hire another appraiser or did you do the appraisal yourself? Also, how did the board of assessment react to your being an appraiser presenting his own appeal?
Thanks Michael. I actually don’t do full appraisals for the tax appeals I handle (most of the time – unless warranted). I don’t act as an appraiser in those cases either, but as a property tax consultant (I know there is a very fine line there). I have a much more limited product I offer for my property tax appeals. The evidence report I supplied for my own house was not offered by me as an appraiser. I wrote something to the effect of “I am a real estate appraiser, but this is not being prepared by me an appraiser, but as a home owner.” It would be very questionable to act as an advocate if I was doing this type of work while wearing my appraisal hat since we have to be neutral.
I should clarify too that most of the tax appeal work I did last year I prepared reports with a limited scope of work (and therefore limited fee). However, I definitely did a handful of full appraisals for more heavy-duty properties that weren’t so easily represented with a limited product.