posted by Tom Moertel at 11:04 PM /
The county has just posted to its web site the new, court-ordered assessments for Mt. Lebanon. You can search for your new assessment here: Court Ordered Reassessment Values.
Please remember that these assessments won't take effect until the 2013 tax year, at the earliest.
Also, don't freak out if your assessment is higher. Most properties will have their assessed values go up. What matters is how much yours goes up compared the community as a whole.
I hope to do a deeper analysis shortly, when I can get some more data, and then I’ll post more on how the new assessments are likely to affect Mt. Lebanon – and you. Stay tuned.
Please remember that these assessments won't take effect until the 2013 tax year, at the earliest.
Also, don't freak out if your assessment is higher. Most properties will have their assessed values go up. What matters is how much yours goes up compared the community as a whole.
I hope to do a deeper analysis shortly, when I can get some more data, and then I’ll post more on how the new assessments are likely to affect Mt. Lebanon – and you. Stay tuned.
Labels: assessments, property taxes, reassessments, taxes
3 Comments:
We just got a nice comment that I would love to publish, but it wasn't signed. On Blog-Lebo, please remember to put your full name on your comments. (For more on our real-name commenting policy, please see the instructions above the comment box when you go to leave a comment.)
Jen: If you would like to re-post your comment with your full name, I'd be happy to publish it.
Cheers,
Tom
Tom -
My comment was something to the effect of:
I just looked at our assessments and our value increased $70k - which is $50k over the purchase price we paid last July. Our house is assessed higher than any other house on nearly the whole block - and it started out as one of the lowest. I can only imagine it's because we purchased last year?
Will they adjust our value in that case? Should we do a formal or informal review?
Thanks,
Jennifer Curran
Jen,
I am not an attorney, but I would advise you to consider retaining an attorney who specializes or has particular experience in assessment appeals. This is probably especially true if you are a new resident in the County and/or have not had experience with or are not familiar with the appeal requirements and processes.
I do not know what % the $70k amounts to over the current assessed value upon which tax rates are applied; however, if it is say 25% or less, the odds of your tax payments actually increasing based on 2012 millage rates in effect are not very high at this point. If greater than say 25%, or whatever % increase the total assessed value of Lebo property values becomes, and based on what you are reporting, you should definitely appeal. They, the County, will not adjust the value of your property based on neighbors or neighborhood assessment comparisons from what we're told. The comparison criterion is recent selling prices of comparable properties in your immediate area, which denotes an indication of actual market value in their minds..."a willing buyer & willing seller at arms length..", etc.. Of course the price usually has some features beyond just real property value, like chattel content considerations, closing costs, etc.
The fact that your 2013 reassessed value is $50k higher than your purchase price just 7 months ago bolsters your argument, but you'll need favorable price comparisons on comparable neighborhood (say within a mile) properties to be successful. One problem in this regard is that the County has not provided comparables for 2013 property reassessment postings as for current postings, so we're totally on our own in finding recent sales comparables.
You are probably aware of the March 7th. deadline for requesting or filing an informal appeal with the County (412-350-4600). Your issue is obviously far beyond the *tweeking* corrections that can be done on the online property posting of green line items.
Good luck !
Bill Lewis
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