There is still time to appeal your valuation notice from the Fulton Tax Assessors. The deadline to appeal is June 28. The Fulton tax assessors usually receive more property tax appeals than any other county in the Atlanta metropolitan area. They are currently still working on their 2011 appeals as well as court cases from prior years. There is hope that they will get to their 2012 assessment appeals sometime soon so that this property tax appeal season doesn't drag on well into 2013.

As a former manager for the Fulton Tax Assessors, I know about the volume of appeals they get. Every appeal form or letter is put into a separate file for every real estate parcel appealed. Each appeal is logged into the computer system. This process, by itself, is very time-consuming. With a large number of appeals being filed in the last week, you can bet that many of the appeal folders that are given to the appropriate appraiser won't even be completed until the end of July. If you try to talk to the appropriate appraiser about your property tax appeal they may tell you that they don't have the appropriate file to work with you.

The DeKalb County tax assessment notices are out and dated May 29, 2012. The deadline to appeal your 2012 value is July 13, 2012. The tax amount at the bottom of the notice is an estimate based on the 2011 tax rate and is subject to change. The DeKalb County tax assessment notice, as is the case with all Georgia assessment notices, is not a bill.

Wow. Just like last year, there are some wild and wacky value changes in DeKalb County tax assessments. Values dropped almost 50% on my street. Across the way values declined 17%, and just south 1/2 mile values were increased approximately 20%. A similar situation was seen last year at this time. Check that blog post here. Although the DeKalb County budget is in disaray it would be nice at some point if the DeKalb County tax assessment department gave us the sales information that they are using.

There is just over a week remaining to appeal your commercial Cobb County property tax assessments. The Cobb County property tax assessors took the first opportunity to increase values in several years to heart and jacked up a lot of commercial values. I have filed appeals on commercial values that have increases as high as 115%!

Most commercial property owners will say that we are still in recession, but not the Cobb County property tax assessors. I have clients that are teetering on the edge of insolvency but everything is looking up at 736 Whitlock Avenue! Maybe they haven't noticed that vacancy rates haven't improved. Maybe they haven't heard that tenants can still demand lower rent payments on the legitimate threat of moving to a lower cost building.

 DeKalb County tax assessments will be mailed on May 29th according to a report by the AJC. This will make the tax assessment appeal deadline July 13th. The DeKalb County Tax Assessment office reports that values (assessments) dropped six percent for the 2012 tax year. There continues to be value weakness throughout the Atlanta metro area. 

The DeKalb County Board of Equalization (BOE) continues to struggle under the weight of the 2011 tax assessment appeals that are still unresolved. I was just engaged to do a hearing on June 6 for a homeowner that cannot attend their 2011 hearing. Anyone of right mind would not want to attend one of these hearings as it is first come, first served, and too many hearings are scheduled for each morning or afternoon.

Fulton County Tax Assessors have released the dogs, I mean the 2012 property tax assessment notices. All that I have seen were dated yesterday May 14 and have an appeal deadline of June 28. There isn't a big rush to get these filed as the Fulton Tax Assessor staff is busy working 2011 tax appeal hearings at the Fulton County Board of Equalization.

The Fulton County Board of Equalization (BOE) is always inundated with appeals every year as it can be difficult to get substantial relief from the Tax Assessor's staff. In addition, many people (inluding myself) prefer to have our appeals settled at the Fulton County Board of Equalization due to the property tax law known as 299C. This is a section of the Georgia property tax law that states if your appeal is settled at the BOE or Superior Court, the value should be frozen for three years, unless you change the property or file a return at a different value.

The Georgia property tax assessment season is now well under way with many metro Atlanta county tax assessment notices already out. First out of the gate was Gwinnett County with an appeal deadline of May 21. Next came Cobb County with an appeal deadline of June 4. Last week Hall County mailed tax assessment notices with a deadline of June 11. Fulton County is expected to mail notices some time this month, as is DeKalb County.

The Cobb County Tax assessment notices were mailed on Friday, April 20 with an appeal deadline of June 4, 2012. My first phone calls were from commercial property owners that had large increases in assessed values. I was told by the County that the values are based on a new revaluation by the Cobb County tax assessment office. They said that they haven't had a revaluation since 2008 because the Georgia General Assembly placed a three year moratorium on assessment increases.

A commercial appraiser from the Cobb County tax assessment office told me that approximately 3,000 commercial properties received an increase in assessment, 8,000 received a decrease in assessment, and the remainder were unchanged. Some of these assessment increases will end up in court because the Cobb County Board of Equalization (BOE) rendered values on these properties last year, and according to Georgia Code 48-5-299C these values should be frozen for two additional years. However, the code does seem to give the assessors a way to change the values:

Gwinnett County tax assessment notices apparently went out without a hitch this year as I have seen nothing on their website or in the media to indicate otherwise. All of the residential and commercial Gwinnett County tax assessment notices were to be sent on April 6 and based on all of the Gwinnett County tax assessment notices that I have received, that is the date they went out. The deadline to appeal tax assessments in Georgia is now uniformly 45 days after the tax assessment notice date, State-wide. That makes the deadline to appeal Gwinnett County tax assessment notices May 21, 2012.

It appears that the Gwinnett County tax assessors are standing their ground on most of their commercial values. I have received copies of many Gwinnett County tax assessment notices already and all are "no change" in values except for a few vacant parcels with already small values. I guess a reduction from a $3,700 market value estimate to a $2,000 market value estimate isn't anything to sneeze at, in percentage terms, but we aren't talking about a lot of tax dollars either. I haven't seen anything with a value in six digits with a reduction, or an increase for that matter.

We want to help you answer the following four questions:

  What are the Approaches to Value That the Assessors Use?
  How Can I Fight the Approaches Being Used?
  How Do I Prepare for My Appeal?
  What Can I Expect From My Appeal?

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  Negotiating a Settlement
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Now that attorneys general in all 50 states have come to agreement with the major banks on how foreclosures must be handled, the banks now have a clear road map on how to speed up processing and put many new homeowners into the foreclosure process. Foreclosure cases can now move forward after sitting in limbo while delinquent homeowners sat in the properties. Foreclosures dropped in January, but 21 states posted increased foreclosure filings in February. This is the beginning of an increase in foreclosure filings that will peak over the coming months.

Nevada currently has the highest rate of foreclosure filings with one of every 278 households receiving a foreclosure filing. Second on the list is California with one of every 283 households receiving a foreclosure filing. Arizona is third with one in every 312 households receiving. Georgia comes in fourth with one in every 331 households receiving a foreclosure filing.

Repossessions, which is the final stage of foreclosure, were down 4% from January, nationally. However, repossessions were up 76% in Georgia. As the banks work through their backlog of delinquent mortgages the number of distressed properties coming onto the market in Georgia should increase this year. As a result I do not think that this will be the year for price recovery to begin, at least in the Atlanta Metro area.

If you need help with your 2012 Georgia property tax appeals contact your Atlanta-based property tax consultants at Fair Assessments LLC.