First, the good news from the 2009 property tax assessment we received in the mail today: the appraised value of our home itself is unchanged from 2008.
The not so good news: They jacked up the appraised value of the land by about 75%, apparently across the board for everyone in town.
I got my 09 property tax appraisal Friday. I had the opposite results - land value unchanged but the house value increased 3.9%. This was on top of a 13% increase in 2008, reduced through an informal protest from an initial increase of 24%
. I was not at all happy with the new appraisal and could see no reason for the increase as real world property values in this area have been flat at best the past year.
When I called the appraisal office a few minutes ago I was very surprised to be able to speak with an appraiser after being on hold for only a minute or so. I'd planned to be on my best behavior and discuss my issues calmly and logically, being as diplomatic as I possibly could. Turns out it wasn't required.
As I began asking what factors they'd considered in coming up with the increase, he interrupted me to say "Hold on, I think I found an error". It seems they showed my house and my deck as being built in 2008 instead of 1998. When he changed the dates in his system, instead of increasing by 3.9%, my appraised value
dropped by 8.7%.
While that's one heck of a lot better, I'll end up paying almost the same in taxes this year as last year. Increases in tax rates will almost completely offset the savings I'll get due to the lower valuation.
And my doubts about the accuracy and competency of our county appraisal district continue to grow...
