It just happened again! We have a unique situation in West Hartford, CT when it comes to property taxes. About 4 years ago the town did a re-evaluation and developed new property assessements. Since the changes were pretty dramatic for many residents, the town decided to phase in the new assessed values over a 5 year period - never an easy thing to do. So formulas were developed to figure out what the correct assessed value should be each year.
The problems are twofold. First, in this age of automation, the various websites, including our MLS's on-line tax record, display the final, not the interim, assessed value. Second, the town stopped the phase-in after year 3. Therefore, many homeowners will never reach this final assessed value.
So when agents who aren't aware of the situation enter a listing into the MLS, instead of calling the tax office, they may go to the on-line tax record, pull off what appears as the assessed value, apply the current mil rate, and there you go - the wrong property tax amount. The one we recently saw was off by about $2,000. So potential Buyers may pass the listing right by thinking the taxes are too high!
OK, so we know we are not the MLS police and should not be our fellow Realtors' keepers, but it is a shame. We would hope that Sellers would check their properties on-line to make sure that the information is correct, pictures are good, etc. But it seems some do not, whether they are not automation savy, it is an estate, etc. So what's a Realtor to do?
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