Anyone here successfully appealed their property tax increase?

[Easy Mac]

We've waited something like a year, and they city finally got back to us about our property tax appeal. It went up, because for some reason the appraised value of our house went up by about $30k.

Now I have to appear before an appeal board in 2 weeks (thanks for picking a convenient time for me, city) and try and argue why they're trying to screw us. I could understand if that's what we paid for the house, but when we got the house, we paid $10k under the then appraised value. The next year they then raised the appraised value by $30k. So we're essentially paying taxes on a house valued at over $40k what we paid for it.

We don't really see a point in hiring a lawyer, only because if we do that, we may as well just pay the increase in property tax.

[johnnyshaka]

I was in a similar situation when the market up here sky-rocketed a few years ago. My appraisal went up by 20% in one year and when I hit the realtor websites none of the houses in my neighbourhood were any where near what they had quoted. I called the city and they told me that they had documentation of several sales around us at the time in question at the prices listed close to my recent appraisal. I told her I didn't believer her and that I wanted to see that proof to which she said I needed to file an official appeal and the admin fee for doing so was $200, IIRC. Pfft...screw that, spending $200 and likely not changing a damn thing and then still having to pay the higher taxes...what's the point?

[Shepp]

I won my appeal down here in Georgia about four years ago. I had my Realtor pull all the comps in the area which were nowhere near as high as the county was trying to raise mine. I had to write a letter and I attached the paperwork that I got from the Realtor and I think in the end my taxes actually went down a little bit.

[QuikSand]

My experience (I recently won an appeal) is that most appeals that are engaged by knowledgeable homeowners and assisted by competent appraisers or experts are successful. The government team is just overmatched, as they use so many weak shortcuts in the appraisal process that they have little motivation to actually defend the specifics of any one case very seriously.

My recent win was worth over $100K in assessment, and my county has a weird tax credit program limiting future assessment increases -- so it was well worth it to me to lay out a few hundred bucks to get someone to just take care of it, kick ass, and send me the bill.

[Buccaneer]

My first reaction, QS, was to wonder how you could single-handedly fix the problem in Maryland. :)

[lighthousekeeper]

we appealed last year and had taxes reduced by around $1,300.