What do you do if you believe that you are paying more in property taxes than you should? This is an issue that you should not ignore, but too many homeowners just don’t pay close attention to their property taxes. They get their bill from the Cobb County tax assessor’s office and they simply pay it. Sure, they do not like spending the money on the taxes, but they pay and move on with their life.
What Should You Do?
What if you were paying hundreds or thousands too much in taxes, though, and you just kept paying year after year? Imagine what you could do with the extra money. While not everyone is going to save that much on their tax bill, saving even a small amount could add up over time. Therefore, it is in your best interest that you take the time to really look at the bill when it arrives. If you believe that it is too high, there is a good chance that you are correct.
This is because when calculating the property taxes, there is not a group of assessors who can go out to all of the homes in Cobb County. The tax assessor will instead use data and information on your property to come up with a valuation. This means that there are a number of areas where mistakes could be made. There might be a problem with the paperwork, or the assessor might make an error in their math. There might not be anything that accounts for damage that occurred on your property over the last year, as well.
Therefore, whenever you think that the assessment might be wrong, you will want to file for an appeal. However, it’s not quite that easy. There are a number of things that you will want to consider and tips you will want to keep in mind.
Understand Your Responsibilities and Do the Legwork
You will want to have an understanding of the property tax laws in Cobb County, and you will want to make sure that you abide by the deadline for appealing your tax assessment. You should also make sure that you are checking your property record card. This will provide information about your property that the appraiser might have gotten wrong. It could also include information that is incorrect and that you will need to have fixed. That incorrect information would likely be the cause of the high taxes.
Take the time to look for errors across the paperwork to determine where the problem might lie. This takes time, but it will be worth it if you are able to reduce the amount of taxes that you owe by an appreciable amount.
The Cobb County tax assessors would typically utilize comparable properties when they were making their decision on your property’s value. These are properties in the area that are similar to yours in terms of style, size, and features. However, this does not mean that the assessors have always done the best job finding true comps for your property. You might want to do the same. Just make sure that the comps you are considering using are from the same timeframe as to when the assessors made theirs. Since the markets change over time, you want the comps you choose to be an accurate reflection of what the market was like at the time the county’s assessment was made.
You Need to Be Backed Up by Evidence
If you are going to request that you have a new evaluation for your home and that you have your property taxes lowered, you can’t simply ask nicely. You need to show that there are legitimate reasons that you believe the assessment was done incorrectly, and then you need to have evidence that will back up your case.
Evidence used for appeals can vary quite a bit from one case to the next. This is because there is not just one type of error that could be made with the assessment. There are many things that could be incorrect, and that means the type of evidence needed can vary. For example, you might be able to use the contractor report, architectural renderings, and even a professional comp from a third party who is unbiased. You could even find comps of your own that you could then present during the appeal hearing.
Evidence is important, and it’s not always easy to find if you don’t know where to look. You could benefit from some help.
Work with Professionals
You will need to take the time to find evidence that will help your particular case. This will take some time and effort on your part, and you might end up finding that you simply don’t have that time. In those cases, you don’t want to abandon the hope of an appeal. Instead, you will want to get in touch with the professionals who can handle all of the hard work for you.
When you take the time to find a company like Fair Assessments, LLC., you can be sure you are working with true professionals who have decades of experience working in this field. We can look at your case and let you know whether it looks like you are being overcharged or not, and we can help you find and gather all of the evidence that will be needed. In addition, you will not have to go to your hearing alone. These hearings are often intimidating and having us there to take care of things will make it much easier. Working with professionals also ensures your paperwork is filed on time, and that you have actual evidence that helps to back up your case.
If you are worried about paying too much in property taxes, we can help. You can visit our site, or you can call us at (404) 618-0355. It is time that you put all of that worry about your property taxes behind you. Let us guide you through the next steps.
