Hi Chatlisters,
I figured I’d share our tax value appeal story, maybe it’ll help someone else. We received our Chatham County tax value reappraisal last week and it had increased almost $120,000 over the 2020 value! We had refinanced our mortgage almost exactly a year ago and, luckily, an appraisal was required. I filled out the appeal form online, attached the appraisal and in less than 7 hours we received a response with a new “recommended market value”. The thing was, it was still over $7,000 higher than the appraisal I attached to the appeal. I emailed back asking why it was more and I got a thorough response explaining that the appraisal I got for the refinance was only based on 3 area home sales prior to March 2020 whereas the county deals in “mass appraisal” where 2 years worth of sales are considered up through 1/1/2021. So, at that point, my options were to accept their new value or go before the Board of Equalization and Review in an effort to get it valued even lower. Because I didn’t feel I had any additional evidence for why it should be lower, I accepted the new value which was a total reduction of $42,202 from their original value.
On one hand, the staff was responsive, informative, and helpful, which we appreciate. On the other hand, had we not refinanced, I wouldn’t have had a recent appraisal to challenge their tax value increase. Without the appraisal, which was $500, it kinda makes me feel like I would have had to accept their new value. What are we going to do for the next tax reappraisal? Are there other effective ways to appeal?
Mike
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2021 14:01:31 +0000
From: Mike K
Subject: Property Tax Value Change
