DeKalb County Tax Assessor 2014 Notices

The Dekalb County Tax Assessor sent real estate assessment notices on May 30, 2014. In Georgia you have 45 days to appeal your assessment and that makes the deadline to file July 14, 2014. Here you can access the Georgia Appeal of Assessment form.

I'm already hearing about 200%+ increases in values in some areas. That seems extreme except that my personal residence increased 82% in taxable value. As a result, I can believe that some values increased much more than 100%. I must say that the DeKalb County Tax Assessor was aggressive in reducing values a couple of years ago, during the Great Recession. For the past two years the value on my residence was much lower than market value, so it is not surprising to me to see such a large increase. 

You will find the name(s) of the county appraiser(s) for your neighborhood listed on your 2014 property tax assessment notice. Although I wouldn't discourage anyone from calling these people to discuss their taxable value and how it was generated, I will warn you to protect your rights. Remember the deadline to file is July 14 and don't think that just because you had a conversation with a county appraiser and they said they would look at your value that all is well. Talking to the county is not filing an appeal. Filing an appeal has to be done in writing by July 14. After that date you will have to wait until next year.

Filing a property tax appeal is an attempt to save money. For that reason I encourage everyone to select the Board of Equalization as their second level of appeal (yes you have to specify the second level before you talk to the first level). The Board of Equalization is free of charge and is composed of DeKalb County taxpayers just like you. They get some training from the State of Georgia and then they are qualified to hear arguments on value and make decisions about value. 

The DeKalb County property tax appeal process is very lengthy. Do not expect to hear back from your appeal within a few weeks. A few months is more like it. If the DeKalb County tax assessor does not lower your value upon your appeal then your appeal is automatically sent to the Board of Equalization. If the assessor offers you a reduction that is not acceptible to you then you have 30 days to further your appeal to the Board of Equalization in writing. 

Having your appeal heard at the Board of Equalization makes the value settlement subject to a Georgia tax law that is commonly called 299c. Board of Equalization and Superior Court decisions are frozen for three years. So if you got a reduction at the BOE for tax year 2014, the next time the assessor has an opportunity to increase the value is 2017. There are a few things that unfreeze such a value. If you sell the house, if you change the house, or if you file a taxpayers return of real property value at a value that is different than the frozen value, the DeKalb County Tax Assessor can increase your value. 

Some people will have their case heard by the BOE even if they are happy with the tax assessor value. This way they get to freeze the value they are happy with for three years. In some ways this is a bad law because it causes inequity in assessments. For example, if a few of the property owners in your neigbhorhood have frozen values, but value are rising, the DeKalb County Tax Assessor has to raise values in the neighborhood, but not the frozen values. As a result, the tax burden becomes unfair.

If you have any comments or questions please post them here. We'll get back to you as soon as possible. We are trying to include as much timely and useful information here as we can. Good luck in your DeKalb County property tax appeal.