Good and bad news

[takla_makan]

The good news: I just got the assessment of my house's value, and it's 32% more than what I paid for it (a 22% jump over last year alone

Comments

[sheryll]

I know just what you mean. Housing values in this neighbourhood have skyrocketed and property taxes right along with them. I'm curious, how often do they re-assess property there? Here it's every 10 years, iirc. Thankfully, we're not due for about another 5 on our place. After our last one, Andy tore the whole back wall off his shed in the back and shortened the thing by 2 feet. Otherwise they would have assessed us as having a second building on the lot!

[takla_makan]

I get a notice every year, so I guess that's how often they do the assessment. They don't come inspect the house, though. They just know the basics: square footage, number of bedrooms and baths, and the neighborhood where it is.

That my property value has gone up is nice if I'm planning to sell, but I'm not. So all I get is hit with the taxes.

[sheryll]

I think they have to inspect every so many years here. They don't stick by that very strictly, since the last time this place was actually visited it was still a single home and not an upper/lower duplex. I think it's been like this for decades, so obviously the assessment office isn't great at doing it's job.

We get a property tax notice every year, but it's generally not considered an assessment. Property tax increases here can be set to increase by the city whenever they vote to do so. Thankfully we can see that coming from all the uproar on the news.

[sageofgodalming]

But hasn't everyone else's gone up, too, requiring a downward adjustment to the tax rate? Or is that the problem: yours is surging ahead of the pack and so attracting a larger proportion of the tax take?