Dear Community:
I have been swamped with calls from you about the Cayuga County re-assessment. I know that many of you are very surprised and maybe that's an understatement. About a year ago the Cayuga County Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) records were opened up and made public. I just want to share this with you so that you are aware and able to go in and see what information the assessor has about your property on record. There are many properties involved and as when you are doing anything in this volume there can be mistakes made.
Check out your information and make sure the assessor has the correct information.
It is very easy to check this out. If you are unlucky enough to be on dial up remember the local libraries have high speed access either wireless ( aurora - use you own laptop) or computers available - Aurora Library is open MWF 3-8 and Saturday 10-3 and Hazard Library is open Tuesday and Thursday 1-8 , and Saturday 9-4. Just to help, taxes are stressful enough.
Here's the link to the ORPS website: http://www.co.cayuga.ny.us/realproperty/imate/index.html
and here is a step-by-step process to find your property:
When the page opens up you'll see this and click on it
Then you'll see the box below and click on here:
Then you'll see the following box - IT'S VERY TOUCHY - meaning the more information you fill in, the more confused it gets - try just filling in the your last name - and hit search - then scroll through and find your information
Your property information should come up - you'll see a box on the left hand side of the screen that looks like this:
Click on the Report box and check all the boxes that come up on the left - click them all
Now you should be able to look at everything that the tax office has about your property. There have been mistakes made on other people's properties - In the case of assessment, size matters and if they have you with extra outbuildings, extra bathrooms, rooms, square footage, extra shoreline ( if you are on the lake). Wrong information like this will directly affect the amount that you are assessed for.
You'll also be able to see what everyone else is being re-assessed at - it is completely open information.
Keep in mind that if a house sold, let's say, 4 times in the last 20 years the assessment value will be closer to the market value. Market value is usually by definition, what A BUYER will pay for your house on a open market. I am really, really, really unsure and surprised at some of the values that some of you have shared with me.
If you have owned your house for a substantial time (as many of you have indicated) then you were probably re-assessed slowly or not at all - the point of re-assessment is designed to re-align the discrepancies between market value and assessment value. To insure that everyone is on a equal taxpaying level and no one is paying more than their share.
I would suggest checking out the website and looking hard at your assessment and if you chose to, fighting it - you will only go up in the future from this number. The open ORPS site allows you to understand what everyone else is assessed at.
It is my understanding that you are allowed to have an informal appointment where you discuss the assessment, make you case, ask them why you were assessed at that number and lodge your case. Later, I think May, the tentative assessments will become real assessments and then at that point you will need to do the formal grieving process.
I have had MANY CALLS on this and want you to know that everyone has been re-assessed and everyone is very surprised. It may comfort you to know you AREN'T ALONE.
I am not in any way, shape or form responsible for tax assessments but realize that many of you don't know that there's a open source of information available at your fingertips, I just wanted to give you the tools to help yourself.
As always, you are more than welcome to contact me and can reach me by email or on my cell phone 607.351.2353 - as well, I don't have everyone's email please feel free to forward this to your re-assessed friends and family. Share the Knowledge.
Take care and enjoy this Spring Day!
Michelle Miller
Licensed Broker Associate on the Melissa Miller Team at RE/MAX In Motion
Comments(0)