Property Tax Appeal Timing

Property Tax Appeal Timing

Recently, you have likely received a notice of “Your Proposed Property Tax for 2011”. And many people are seeing a decrease in VALUE and an increase is TAXES. There are many reasons for this. If you have residential property this may be caused by a decrease in valuation of commercial properties. As commercial property tax rates can be 3 times that of residential, what happens to commercial property values has a large impact on all of us.

Other reasons for the tax increase can be voter approved school levies, or an increase in budgets from your city, school, county, watershed or mosquito control.

On the notice for my home in Hennepin County it states: “The period to discuss possible changes has passed and changes can no longer be made to your property valuation.”

While the period to have a nice conversation with your local assessor has passed, YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO FILE A PROPERTY TAX APPEAL.

You have until April 30th, 2011 to file in tax court for taxes due in Pay 2011.

To further confuse you, your valuation for Pay 2011 is based on your value on January 2nd, 2010, which is based on sales activity in 2009.

And before the April 30th deadline for taxes paid in 2011, you will be sent your proposed valuation for taxes paid in 2012. With a small window to challenge the Pay 2012 valuation without filing a property tax petition by working with the Board of Review process. The Board of Review has a very tight time frame, but its a quick process. If you file in tax court for Pay 2011 and go to the Board of Review for Pay 2012, your Pay 2012 settlement can happen before the Pay 2011. That's assuming you have your presentation ready.

Confused yet? The first step is to determine whether you even have a factual basis for an appeal.

Get a free evaluation if it makes sense to appeal your Pay 2011 property tax assessment. Send your Property I D numbers, property location and your phone number to heresthedirt@visi.com