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The oddest thing is happening to homeowners across the country. The value of their homes has been dropping the last three years, but their property taxes have been going up! If this describes your situation, it is time to fight back. The first thing to understand about property taxes is “rates are rates”. This simply means that if the agency controlling your property taxes raises the tax rate, there isn’t much you can do about it. Municipalities are facing huge budget shortfalls and rate increases are one of the ways they making up for the shortfall. This doesn’t mean that you can’t fight your property tax bill. Property taxes are often based on an appraised value of your home. This appraisal is done in a drive by manner. Most municipalities hire independent third parties to do the work. These individuals drive by the home and guestimate the rooms and square footage. As you can imagine, this is the area where you can really attack your tax problem. So, how do you do it? The first step to fighting back is to know your time limit. Your statement should contain an appeal deadline. Make sure you know it and right it down. Some areas have long periods while others have very short periods to file an appeal. Oddly, the areas with the higher property taxes seem to have the shortest periods to appeal. Go figure! Now it is time to head to the assessors office. They should have a file on your property. Get a copy. Now inspect the information provided by the appraiser. Compare it to the true situation at your home. Is anything off? Appraisers are famous for adding a bedroom, bathroom or whatever. In fact, it is estimated as many as 60 percent of all property tax appraisals are wrong. Of course, this also means the appraiser could have underestimated the size of your property, so be careful. You don’t want to appeal yourself into a higher tax bill! The next step is to pull comparable home values in your neighborhood. You can usually order this form an online real estate site. You want to compare values to see where your home would fit with the correct appraised size. This will give you an idea of the true value and the figure you want to argue in the appeal. It will also give you an idea of how much you can save on your property taxes. If the savings are sufficient, go ahead and file the appeal. You can do this online in many places. Conduct yourself in a professional manner. “Screamers” tend to have little success with appeals. Thomas Ajava is with PropertyTaxLawyerGeorgia.com - find a property tax lawyer in Georgia to handle your property tax appeal.
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