The first step in appealing your DeKalb County tax assessment notice, specifically your property’s appraised value, is filing a letter of appeal addressed to the Board of Assessors. You should ideally hire a tax consultant but you can also choose to appeal on your own depending on your knowledge of and skills related to the appeals process.
Review of Your Appeal
Upon receipt and acknowledgement of your letter of appeal, the Board of Assessors will assign a staff appraiser to your case. The staff appraiser will review the appraised value on your property usually by closely studying the property’s characteristics (e.g., size, location, type of improvements) and conducting a second inspection.
Once the re-appraisal is completed, you will receive either a No Change Letter or a 30 Day Letter from the Board of Assessors. For the No Change Letter, the DeKalb County tax assessment body stands by its appraised value as indicated on the annual notice of assessment. Your appeal will be automatically forwarded to the next step so you are not required to undertake any step at this stage.
For the 30 Day Letter, the Board of Assessors reduced your proposed appraised value, which you can accept or reject. You have 30 days to respond to the letter, thus, its name.
If you accept the new DeKalb County tax assessment value, then it becomes the final value for the applicable tax year. If you do not reject the new assessed value within 30 days, then it also becomes final. The appeal process is now complete.
Hearing for Your Appeal
If you reject the new appraised value, your appeal will be certified, in a manner of speaking, to the Board of Equalization. This body will then schedule a hearing to establish the value for your property and issue a Hearing Notice addressed to the petitioner (i.e., you).
You and your tax consultant must prepare for the DeKalb County tax assessment appeal hearing especially as the county’s staff appraiser will also prepare for it. During the hearing, the two sides will present their cases, particularly the reasons for their proposed appraised value for the property in question.
The Board of Equalization will evaluate the evidence presented by the two sides and establish a value for your property. You should receive a Decision Letter containing the outcome of the hearing within 10 days after its conclusion. Your property records reflecting the new appraised value for your property will be updated after 30 days – unless you decide to file an appeal to the Superior Court.
Keep in mind that some steps in the DeKalb County tax assessment appeal process have financial requirements, such as fees and charges. You must weigh the benefits of appealing your property’s appraised value (i.e., lower property taxes, when approved) and the costs of doing so (i.e., professional fees of the consultant and processing fees of the government agencies). You must also consider the time, energy and effort poured into the appeal.
