Property tax appeals in Yardley, Newtown, Upper Makefield, Buckingham, Bucks County

July 16th, 2009 by Marty Millner
Categories: Buckingham, Buying Real Estate, Lower Makefield Township, Marty's personal observations., Newtown Boro, Newtown Township, Real Estate News, Tax Appeals, Upper Makefield Township, Yardley Boro
Comments: 1 Comment »

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago, about the process of filing a property tax appeal in Bucks County . I know that the post struck home with a lot of people, as I received a lot of calls and emails from home owners in Bucks County, looking for some help with the process.

I noticed that there was a really interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, that talked about the same issue, from a national perspective.

The article pointed out that tens of thousands of home owners, from all parts of the country are trying to get their property taxes reduced, as a result of the decline in real estate values. In one county in Ohio alone, nearly 23,000 property owners applied for relief.

The article suggested that it is possible to file the appeal yourself, or you can hire an attorney to handle the process for you. As I mentioned in my previous post, attorneys who handle tax appeal cases, generally do so on a contingency basis. They will take as their fee, a negotiated percentage of the first years savings.

The Journal article mentioned a couple of on-line, automated property valuation models that home owners have used to assist with the process. The sites mentioned were EasyTaxFix.com, and LowerMyAssessment.com. I put my own address in Yardley, in both of the sites, and both said they did not have data for my area.

I think the most important advice that I can offer anyone looking to file a tax appeal, is to be absolutely sure that you are prepared. You will need to find properties of comparable size, and value, whose assessment is lower than yours. If you are filing the appeal on your own, it won’t hurt to take pictures, to support your case.

There is a brochure available for 6.95, from the National Taxpayers Union, that explains how to file an appeal. I have not seen the brochure, so I am not sure how valuable it is.

If you want more information about filing an appeal, or want some help in finding tax values or re-sale values, please feel free to contact me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Buckingham, Buying Real Estate, Lower Makefield Township, Marty's personal observations., Newtown Boro, Newtown Township, Real Estate News, Tax Appeals, Upper Makefield Township, Yardley Boro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.