Comments on: Challenge Your Property Taxes and Win!

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:08:27 +0000

Eric, each county has different rules regarding how often you can challenge, and the process for challenging. You will need to contact your county auditor’s office for more information. Best of luck!

By: Eric Garrison

Eric Garrison — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:03:27 +0000

Hi Ryan,

The same thing happened to us. We got a higher payment this year.

Can you challenge the county every year? If so, what are the best steps to address it?

By: Ngoc Chim

Ngoc Chim — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:05:49 +0000

Hi Ryan,
I am inspired by your article. I live in Santa Clara County in California and my home was assessed to high. I did submit a proposition 8 review to try to reduce the assessed value of my home. Sadly it was denied. My mistake was not submitting an appeal. I was really upset when I realized that my next door neightbor was paying $1,500 less in property tax. Their house had much more square footage, they purchased the property after mine. Due to tax laws, nothing can be done at this time. I will have to wait for next July to resubmit my proposition 8 review and the appeal. I do agree that all property owners should verify the assessed value of their homes every year. Thanks for all the great tips.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:09:16 +0000

Jody: I had my mortgage payment increase once as well for the same reason – the estimated property taxes weren’t enough to cover the bill and the escrow account needed replenished. Rather than charge you the difference all at once, the escrow company probably added the amount needed to bring your escrow account current to your monthly mortgage payment. They also had to add more to your mortgage bill to bring up the monthly difference between the amount you were paying and the amount you will owe for next year’s property taxes.

That means this year your payments are a lot higher than what you were expecting, but they may actually drop next year because you aren’t adding money to make up for the low amount in your escrow account.

You can read more about it here: http://cashmoneylife.com/2008/01/29/mortgage-payments-adjust-change/

By: Jody

Jody — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:24:12 +0000

My mortgage payment recently increased by over $400 per month after two years in our new home. Talk about getting priced out of your house. Though my wife and I had rather not, we can currently afford this increase, but what a bunch of crap. We were told by Countrywide that our property taxes had been incorrectly calculated which ultimately resulted in a negative balance in escrow. In this board’s opinion is this amount considered a little outrageous or are we just supposed to take such a huge increase each month in stride? Help.

By: Imani

Imani — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:37:04 +0000

Another great post.

This is something (challenging my property tax assessment) on my list of to do’s this spring. The flag for me was when I called my home insurer a couple of weeks ago to discuss coverage and they showed my home as a two-family, which it is surely not. So maybe something is not right.

Anyway, I did get a reduction of almost $400 on my insurance. So that is good. More money for ING .

By: Pinyo @ Moolanomy

Pinyo @ Moolanomy — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:05:53 +0000

Ryan, that’s good information. I am glad you are able to get your property taxes reduced

By: Art Dinkin

Art Dinkin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 03:44:42 +0000

I see your point too Ryan and think you made the right choice.

I asked these questions because I think we sometimes tend to get too short-sighted. All we want is lower property taxes now… until we try to sell our house and then think our house is worth a lot more than the realtor’s opinion.

I have never had a huge increase in my property taxes. In fact I celebrated the tax bill when the assessment was finally more than I had paid for the house! I think it took 3 or 4 years before that happened.

Great blog Ryan. You have a new reader.