Did you know you can appeal your property taxes?
If you bought your home in 2004-2005 and are concerned with the value of your property is less that the assessed value established by the Assessor you may want to check out the possibility of having your assesment challenged by filing an Assessment Appeal. There are no tax agent or fees required to pay for filing your assessment appeal. Timing is the major restriction and you can only apply from July 2-September 15th.
From 2004 and 2005 we saw huge increases in home prices throughout the County of Orange and the Lake Forest / Portola Hills area. In certain instances we have seen a slight decrease since, which may bring you some extra cash. If you bought a home for $1,000,000 in 2005 we will use the simple tax bracket of 2% you are paying a $20,000 a year in property taxes. If your property currently is worth $925,000 you could appeal the $1m and if approved would save you $2000.00 a year in taxes.
How does this work, The Clerk of the Board has created an online e-file program that provides step-by-step assistance in filling out your appeal form. You can locate that assessment appeal e-file program at http://assessmentappeals.ocgov.com/aa/. In addition the county is sponsoring several workshops to help homowners understand the appeal process and to assist you in preparing for your hearing. Workshop schedules can be found at http://ocgov.com/cob/appeals/workshop.pdf?submit2=workshops. You can also call the Orange County Clerk of the Board of Supervisors at (714)834-2331 or (714)834-3457.
Be careful not to take blanket statements such "Property Values have Bottomed Out" as factual data, besides what the market is doing you must look at the requirements under Proposition 13 which sets standards for valueing property in California. In additon, factual evidence is based upon the market conditions that exist on the lien date not future speculation.
If you believe after reviewing your annual roll value and have factual market evidence you should consider filling an assessment appeal. To help you with the appeal make sure to have your Realtor prepare for you a very detailed Compartive Market Analaysis and possibly consider a re-appraisal to assist in providing you factual evidence that you'll want the board to consider.
For complete details visit http://www.ocgov.com/cob
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