Property Taxes and Property Improvements

[sylvie]

Our property taxes went from $900 to $3000 per year last year.
We had made many improvements since the last assessment so some are understandable. Some aren't.
We put in a flagstone terrace (patio) ourselves. I hauled the rocks from my creek and and seated them in sandy loam, planted herbs between. We were taxed on the terrace! Same rock on the property, just moved. The assessor measured the terrace.

Watch your improvements, ask your auditor's office how they make their determinations beforehand to learn if you can afford the property tax increase the project creates.
Your driveway is taxed as to whether it is a dirt track, crushed stone, asphalt and finally concrete, in that value order. Asphalt and concrete are taxed further for being impervious to storm water, but that's another department here.

Our area is farms and county parks. The farms are taxed to value in agriculture rather than full market value. The parks are tax exempt and their acreage is enormous. There is no industry so the property taxes come from residential properties and farms smaller than 10 acres. We have 7 acres. Whee!

I have heard that the mortgage help on the way is to actually preserve the property taxes and prevent a decrease in revenue generated by them. I know ours will never go down but our future improvements will be more carefully considered.

 

[TanksHill]

In Ca where I live they reassess your property value when you apply for a permit or there is a transfer in ownership. I think most try to avoid this at all costs. I guess that way the taxes only increase after you sell. I think I need to reassess due to the falling market values. Not sure what involved but probably more than worth it.

That's a bummer about your terrace.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Our assessment went down (they had it above what we paid for the property -- uh, real market value, hello? -- and we bought when the market started going down). Even with the decreased assessment, our taxes only went down a tiny amount ($70). Property taxes are an important source of revenue, I suspect those of us still paying, will get hammered.

 

[patandchickens]

Around here it used to be that they only reassessed if you got a building permit or the property changed hands. However this meant that there were some really VAST inequities in property tax and it was hard to project what your tax would be on a property you were thinking of buying.

They've now gone to a system where all values that determine your taxes are readjusted every 5 (I think) years. I do not know how much of the readjustment is based on actual reassessment vs applying some sort of cost-of-living type factor. This is hard on older folks who'd budgeted for their taxes to stay ballpark the same... but does IMO make it fairer for everybody in general.

I really wish there were a fairer, meaning more objective and accurate and level-across-the-board, way for them to value properties for tax purposes. The system is FAR FAR from perfect!

I can see the rationale for taxing on value (not cost), though, e.g. your making a terrace with your own rocks. Inconvenient thought it is. Especially if you weren't expecting it!!

Our property taxes have gone up about 60% in the 5.5 yrs we've been here, partly because of reassessment and partly because of rises in tax rates. Fortunately we figured enough slop into the budget to cover this. Otherwise we could be in a little trouble.

Good luck, hang in there,

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

We ran into this when we built our house. We and family did a lot of the work, so our cost in the house versus its value was wildly disparate. But, if we were to sell....

 

[VT-Chicklit]

Vermont property taxes are tied to laws regarding the funding of the states public schools. One of the requirements is that when a percentage of the properties in a town sell for more than 20% bove the assesed value of the property, an automatic reassessment is triggared. Unfortunately, when poperty values drop radically, no reassessment is triggared. Additionally some town in our state are considered to be "Gold Towns" because of the quantity of second homes that are there. Gold Town properties are taxed at 100% of assessed value while the other towns (most of the towns) are taxed at 80% of their assessed value. The tax monies for this school property tax go to our capital where the are placed into a big pool to be doled out by legislature, based on the number of students a town has. There is an additional property tax that goes to the town for town expenses.

I live in a Gold Town. My town has 450 year round residents (including children and cows) and many summer homes of people from Montreal, Boston, New Jersey, Connecticut etc. We had a reassessment triggered 1 year before the housing bubble burst. My log house on about 3/4 acre of land was reassessed at $189,000. My house is nothing special and I cannot even see the lake from it. Its actual value now, if I could sell it, is about $125,000. The reassessment happened because of several speculators who bought some houses on the island and flipped them before the town assessors could reassess their major improvments and file the new values with the state before the properties were resold. My town property taxes (to pay for roads and services) has been around .53/ hundred while the monies I send to the state capitol for the school property tax has been around $2 / hundred. We only have 60 children that we educate and most of them are sent off island to school, but we have to keep a school open for our K -6 graders (26 of them) on the island. We do not get back enough from the state to fully fund the school so we pay again! More of our monies goes to the state for education than they give us back to educate our own students.

I am very worried, with the economy being so bad and the state and town being in the red. They both will be back in our wallets for more money than last year and I am not sure where we all will get it. Our town has no industry and only 1 small general store. The largest land holder is the Catholic Church, who is tax exempt. There are very few jobs on the island and none that pay reasonably well. Most people that work drive from 70 - 100 miles a day to get to work. There are not enough of us to complain and get the legislature to change this unfair two tier tax system. When we have complained to our representative, we were told "you are paying for the beautiful view." What they don't realize is that we can't eat the view!

 

[enjoy the ride]

We have Prop 13 here in California which is a life saver considering our representatives think of the taxpayer as an unlimited resource. The trouble comes with all the bonds added to the property tax- I have 5 school bonds on my bill.
Even if the ecomony is bad, polititians still seem to feel that they can spend what they want.

 

[lupinfarm]

Our property taxes are something like a 1/3 of what they were when we lived in Bowmanville in a subdivision. They have this new program where if you do improovements to your house you can get a tax credit (have you seen this Pat and Morel? ... they had flyers at the Home Depot). We can claim all our paint, the bathroom remodel upstairs, etc. The only things we can't claim are the office (gets claimed on our business taxes) and all the farm things like fencing, buying a pony, feed, chicks, etc. which get claimed on the business taxes.

I think that's ridiculous that they'd factor your patio into it.... I mean you can just as easily take it with you if you move!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Our property taxes doubled this year, and we haven't made any changes from last year. :/