Contesting Your Pay 2012 Property Tax Valuations

Contesting Your Pay 2012 Property Tax Valuations
A client who owns property in Wisconsin told me the assessor is required to keep a file of the comparable sales they used so set the value for every property. In Minnesota, the TAXPAYER has the burden of proof to show that the assessed value should be lower.
Whining doesn't work.
Those that tell me they have not seen results in contesting their property taxes either appealed something that was valued correctly, or they didn't have an appraisal to prove a lower value.
The “Notice of Valuation and Classifications for Property Taxes Payable in 2012 have been drifting in. There are no legal or filing fees for this process if its done on a timely basis. And the process to contest them is not uniform. You need to read the notices carefully.
For example, Anoka County and Ramsey County do NOT have a Local Board of Review. They have Open Book Meetings, April 5-7th in Ramsey and April 27th - April 29th in Anoka. Then they each have a County Board of Appeal and Equalization in June. But the process differs between the Counties on how to get on the addenda.
Some Local Board of Reviews are the first week of April. For Cities or Township that have a Local Board of Appeal and Equalization, you MUST go there first, either in person, by letter, or by a personal representative. Then you can move on to the County Board of Review if you're not happy with the results from the Local Board. The County Board may be more effective than the Local Board, which is typically the City Council,which, in most cases, are not valuation experts. But blow off the City and you lose your opportunity to go the to the County level.
Despite being a yogi and mediation practitioner, I'm still a woman of very little patience. I like to get things done quickly.
Tax Court can take years. I recently completed an appraisal for an attorney for a tax court case for taxes payable in 2008! The Board of Appeal and Equalization, by statute, MUST complete there work by the end of June 2011 for taxes due in 2012. And if you aren't happy with the result, you can still file in Tax Court.
I operate on the belief that when the assessor MUST look at support for the Pay 2012 appeals, they might as well review the data for the Pay 2011 Tax Court Petition at the same time. Or even earlier years if they are outstanding. Especially on more complex properties. Once the assessor gets their head around understanding the property and they go out and inspect it, its minimal effort to review another years worth of market data.
If you send me your “2011 Notice of Valuation and Classification” TODAY, then it won't be your property in 2014 that I'm writing your appraisal for a 2011 property tax appeal.
Time is running out. For a free review of your property tax valuations email your notices to heresthedirt@visi.com or, if it just a couple notices, you can fax them to 763-420-9792.