Have you noticed that you have been paying more in your property taxes than you believe you should be paying? While no one likes to pay property taxes or other taxes for that matter, they are a fact of life. However, that does not mean you shouldn’t question how much you are paying in property taxes when it feels like it is too high. There is always a chance that the Gwinnett County tax assessor made an error when they were valuing properties, which means you could be paying more in taxes than you should.
What Does the Gwinnett County Tax Assessor’s Office Do?
The appraisal staff from the office will often conduct visits to properties as part of their process. These visits and inspections are conducted by county appraisers, as well as appraisers who have been contracted by the county to handle the work. When they arrive at the property, they will announce their presence and then conduct an exterior inspection of the property for assessment purposes. They do not have to inspect the interior of the property, and they do not ask to enter the home.
While this is convenient for the homeowners, particularly those who are not there when the property is inspected, it does mean that there could be some mistakes made when it comes to properly valuing the property. For example, they might not have the correct number of bedrooms of bathrooms indicated for your property, which could throw off the value of the home’s assessment.
Once the Gwinnett County tax assessor has completed the assessment, the homeowner will receive a letter in the mail called an Annual Notice of Assessment. It is important that homeowners take the time to review this letter, as it will provide them the assessed value of the property, which is 40% of the fair market value. Their annual property tax bill will be based on this number. If it is incorrect, it could mean that you are paying quite a bit more for your property’s taxes than you should.
The homeowner will have 45 days from the date on the notice to file an appeal. It is possible for the owner to file on the value, taxability of the property, or because they feel that the values are not assessed uniformly.
After the homeowner files the appeal, a member of the Gwinnett County tax assessor’s office will review it and determine whether they should accept the value of the owner, determine a new value, or keep the value from the original assessment. If they do not grant the change that you want, you can then move on to a hearing to have your side heard. Once you receive notice of whether your change is accepted or rejected, you will have 30 days in which you can respond.
It is important that you always meet all of the deadlines and guidelines put forth by the county. If you miss one of the deadlines, it is not as simple as arranging another meeting later. You will have to wait a year and go through the process again. In fact, if you fail to respond within 30 days, the office treats the nonresponse as an acceptance of whatever their decision might have been. If they believed that the original assessment was correct, you would have to live with it for at least another year.
If you want to reduce your property taxes, and you believe that you are correct about the lower valuation of your home, there is no time to waste. However, you might want to have the help of a professional to take you through this process. It can help to make things much easier for you.
Getting Help With Your Appeal
Because there are so many things that you will have to do and remember when you are trying to file for the appeal and prove that the valuation of the property is not correct, it is often easier to get some help from a property tax consultant.
One of the ways that the consultant can help is by looking at the assessment letter and the valuation of your house to determine if there are issues with it. They can look at comparable homes in the area that sold during the same period when the assessor was valuing the property. If they can find homes that are comparable in size, condition, and location that had values that were lower than your home, they can then use that as evidence that your home was valued too highly. Of course, they also need to make sure that those homes they are using as comps were not short sales and bank-owned properties, which would not be accepted by the Gwinnett County tax assessor in most cases.
A lot of work goes into properly preparing your evidence for the appeal process. Most homeowners have other things that they have to worry about, and they would rather have someone help with the legwork of the appeals process, and who can remember to have everything taken care of by the deadlines.
It is important to keep in mind that not all of the property tax professionals are worth your time and money, though. You need to make sure you are working with those who are the best and who have the experience and knowledge you need. They need to have been in the field for a number of years, and they need to have experience working with properties in Gwinnett County, for example. Finding those who have been part of an assessor’s office in the past can be quite helpful, as well, since they know how those departments work.
Always make sure the company has the experience needed when it comes to working with residential homes such as yours as well. While there are consultants who can work with both residential and commercial properties, some only work with commercial locations. Make sure you have the right type of consultant for your needs.
