Hoodwinked by the county!

[Labcabin]

So my mortgage escrow just jumped $400 a month because Anne Arundel County's property tax assessment just jumped Bigly! The every three year assessment came around and now my county is at the top of the list for highest paid in the country.

I've been robbed... Pitch forks and fire! this ain't 90210.

Zillow doesn't say my house is worth all that!!!!

[liv2ski]

Sorry for your ass raping. At least CA got part of the Prop 13 law correct so my property taxes do not do that.
If you think your being over assessed, call a RE Agent and ask them to provide you with 3+ comps that support a more realistic value and petition the assessor for a lower tax hit.

[oldblue]

So my mortgage escrow just jumped $400 a month because Anne Arundel County's property tax assessment just jumped Bigly! The every three year assessment came around and now my county is at the top of the list for highest paid in the country.

I've been robbed... Pitch forks and fire! this ain't 90210.

Zillow doesn't say my house is worth all that!!!!

Your property tax rate looks quite reasonable @ just over 1%?

[Sirshredalot]

So my mortgage escrow just jumped $400 a month because Anne Arundel County's property tax assessment just jumped Bigly! The every three year assessment came around and now my county is at the top of the list for highest paid in the country.

I've been robbed... Pitch forks and fire! this ain't 90210.

Zillow doesn't say my house is worth all that!!!!

You should be able to appeal the assessment in a pretty straightforward fashion. Get on it ASAP because it forms a basis for future assessments.

[LightRanger]

Appeal it.

But citing Zillow is dumb. Their shit is way off.

[fatnslow]

Appeal it.

But citing Zillow is dumb. Their shit is way off.

This plus have recent sales/neighboring property as comps or you'll get fucked, better yet go get OJ to take care of it. He's out of prison now and might be looking for work.

[El Chupacabra]

This plus have recent sales/neighboring property as comps or you'll get fucked, better yet go get OJ to take care of it. He's out of prison now and might be looking for work.

Nicole's killer raised Labcabin's property tax assessment?

[digitaldeath]

Let’s see your Zillow page

[digitaldeath]

Appeal it.

But citing Zillow is dumb. Their shit is way off.

Zillow is a good benchmark and often more accurate than not

[MontuckyFried]

You should be able to appeal the assessment in a pretty straightforward fashion. Get on it ASAP because it forms a basis for future assessments.

I had to do that once. Thankfully was really easy. Went into the appraisal district office, told them I didn't agree with the new appraisal (they really did say it was higher than reality proved), and they were like "Yeah, no problem." Made some changes in their computer and done. Took like 5 minutes and I was back to my former rate. Maybe I got lucky and just had a really nice person to work with, so YMMV. Worth a shot though. And I'm sure going and being nice will probably yield better results than raising hell about it. Bring a plate of homemade cookies for the office perhaps? I've totally done that before to work over crabby county workers for some deed records I needed help with. Worked like a charm. They're so used to people being pissed off that a little nice gesture never hurt. Unless you get that one worker who's so jaded that she's like GTFO and raises your taxes.

[GeezerSteve]

Yeah, appeal the assessment if you think the assessed value exceeds market value. Be prepared to offer one or more credible valuations to support your proposed assessment.

In many jurisdictions, assessed values lagged behind actual values for years and are starting to catch up. There are lots of pressure on local government to raise revenue as they get less fed and state money.

[Elkhound Odin]

I had this problem a few years ago. Assessment came in higher than any sale in the past year. Instead of pulling comps from a RE agent, I went on the county website and pulled actual sales data and threw it back at them in my appeal. They adjusted the assessment close to what I wanted, but not all the way. Recent assessments have bumped up some, but way below market value. This year I fear I'm going to get slammed as property values have jumped nearly 50% over the past 2 years.

[Labcabin]

Well further investigation shows that my mortgage company is saying my escrow was short. I have owned the house for about two years. Why would my escrow have been short by thousands. Im not showing any huge increase in county taxes. Is this an issue with the title and real estate company not setting up my escrow correctly?

[LightRanger]

I had to do that once. Thankfully was really easy. Went into the appraisal district office, told them I didn't agree with the new appraisal (they really did say it was higher than reality proved), and they were like "Yeah, no problem." Made some changes in their computer and done. Took like 5 minutes and I was back to my former rate. Maybe I got lucky

Heh. Small county?

I repped our County Assessor for a while. Much more involved than that here.

[GeezerSteve]

Well further investigation shows that my mortgage company is saying my escrow was short.

cry wolf much?

[liv2ski]

Well further investigation shows that my mortgage company is saying my escrow was short. I have owned the house for about two years. Why would my escrow have been short by thousands. Im not showing any huge increase in county taxes. Is this an issue with the title and real estate company not setting up my escrow correctly?

Your impound account was likely funded off of the previous sellers lower tax basis and so overtime you've accumulated the shortage compared to what they really should have been collected at is the common reason

[Conundrum]

Home owners insurance auto renewed at a higher premium and you didn’t notice until now?

[SB]

MD = the tax me state

[old goat]

California is going to shit because of Prop 13 that limits prop tax increases to 2% a year, with reassessment when a property changes hands. It was enacted to solve a real problem--people no longer able to afford their homes due to the property tax increases. The solution was wrong IMO. I think owners should be given the option to have their property assessed at fair market value and then to either pay the tax or to have an increased tax over 2% deferred until the owner or their heirs cash out. I buy a house at 100,000 and pay tax on that + 2%/yr. When I sell for 2 million all the tax I should have paid at fair market value is deducted from my profit. That solves the problem of not taxing people out of their homes without giving them the windfall of huge profits when they sell.

[liv2ski]

California is going to shit because of Prop 13 that limits prop tax increases to 2% a year, with reassessment when a property changes hands. It was enacted to solve a real problem--people no longer able to afford their homes due to the property tax increases. The solution was wrong IMO. I think owners should be given the option to have their property assessed at fair market value and then to either pay the tax or to have an increased tax over 2% deferred until the owner or their heirs cash out. I buy a house at 100,000 and pay tax on that + 2%/yr. When I sell for 2 million all the tax I should have paid at fair market value is deducted from my profit. That solves the problem of not taxing people out of their homes without giving them the windfall of huge profits when they sell.

Jerry Brown and the non stop spending legislature of CA thanks you for your opinion The fact of the matter is the law was created to stop little old people from losing their homes due to crazy property tax hikes. Prop 13 should only apply to owner occupied properties. Not rentals (of which I have a few) and certainly not to commercial buildings.
Change the law to only cover owner occupied properties and CA will no longer have a property tax revenue issue.
Thing is, all the state representatives are getting campaign contributions from the Apartments Owners Assc and their like, so it will never happen. Your representatives are bought and paid for, hence a lot of the problems in this country.

[LightRanger]

California is going to shit because of Prop 13 that limits prop tax increases to 2% a year, with reassessment when a property changes hands. It was enacted to solve a real problem--people no longer able to afford their homes due to the property tax increases. The solution was wrong IMO. I think owners should be given the option to have their property assessed at fair market value and then to either pay the tax or to have an increased tax over 2% deferred until the owner or their heirs cash out. I buy a house at 100,000 and pay tax on that + 2%/yr. When I sell for 2 million all the tax I should have paid at fair market value is deducted from my profit. That solves the problem of not taxing people out of their homes without giving them the windfall of huge profits when they sell.

Prop 13 reform is coming in the next few years. Watch for it.

The "grandpa getting taxed out of his home" was always a red herring. Tax deferred to sale or deed transfer (as you suggested) was, as I understand it, suggested as an alternative even back in the 70s when the idea was being debated. But it didn't happen because Prop 13 was heavily backed by commercial property owners who wanted their tax basis kept artificially low. Think PG&E in their ancient headquarters building on Market Street, etc. Ironically, Congressional Republicans may have made Prop 13 reform even more likely with the recent tax bill. Should be interesting to watch.

[LightRanger]

Frankly, I think even a limitation to owner-occupied is a halfass measure because the law still distorts the hell out of the residential market that way too. E.g. you have retirees living in prime real estate with short commutes to where all the jobs are that they're not working--leaving working people to commute from elsewhere.

Obviously there are tons of other issues with the residential market in the Bay Area and Coastal Southern California (the biggest of which is density and simple lack of supply), but to pretend that Prop 13 (even if changed to just for owner-occupied) isn't a significant component of the issue is to ignore a major problem. In terms of cost-benefit on a societal level, it does more harm than good.

[Labcabin]

So the mortgage company says they where given an assessment from the county in May if 2017. Then the county came to collect in Sept and the amount was much higher, which created a short in the escrow. I now have to pay off the short, monthly. So the question becomes, why did the county do that?

[fatnslow]

The amount that matters is the net property tax for 2018 that was issued. I have never heard of a county sending assessed amount of property previously then sending a tax bill months later. Maybe your tax rate increased as well the value if your place ? You should have also received a copy of the new property tax the same time it was sent to the mortgage folks. It there was a shortage that's something you need to make up , the new assessed value is another thing entirely. I hope it's not too late for you to protest it since it's been a few months since it was issued. Good luck

[stuckathuntermtn]

Enlighten me: what does escrow have to do with it?
I thought that was only something in between getting approval and closing.