Are you the owner of a commercial or residential property in Gwinnett County? If so, do you have concerns about a recent Gwinnett County property tax assessment? Perhaps you have had some issues with it since the last time it was done and wonder if there is anything you can do about it? The good news is that you can. Whether your concern is that your Gwinnett County property tax assessment was too high and driving your tax bill up, or it was too low and making it tough to sell a property at the amount you desire, you can always file an appeal.
Well, always is not an accurate description. That is because any property owner only has 30 to 45 days from when they obtain the new assessment to file the appeal. However, an appeal is always allowed.
What to Think About an Erroneous Gwinnett County Property Tax Assessment
One of the first things to do when you get an assessment you disagree with is to take a deep breath and remain calm. This is because there is absolutely nothing personal about the figure you see on the printed page. Instead, if the numbers are off, it is likely due to any number of factors.
For example, the Gwinnett County property tax assessor's staff is just as busy as those throughout the country. Many explain that they cannot pay actual visits to each property. So, if there is something drastically wrong, they may be unaware. They also use a lot of solid data to make their assessments, but even data can be flawed. And of course, human errors and typographical mistakes can play a role in any flawed assessment. As a simple illustration of that, you might have .75 acres, but a typo made it 7.5 or even 75 acres. You see how easy it might be for the numbers to then be way off the mark.
The items Gwinnett County property tax assessor will typically use includes:
- The amount of land for that one property
- The square footage of the building(s) on the property
- Whether there are features like pools and garages
- If it is a home, they consider if the basement is finished and how many bathrooms there are
- They will consider the conditions of buildings
- They also look at comps, which are comparisons of your property to other similar properties and what they are assessed at
The point to take from all of this is that the Gwinnett County property tax assessor is sincerely trying to make the best valuation based on the data available, and then they make the appeal process an option if you disagree.
Making the Appeal Happen
Of course, if you wish to make an appeal to the Gwinnett County property tax assessor, it is up to you to put it all together. You have that small window of time (30-45 days from when the new assessment is received) to file the appeal. That means you have a lot to do in a very little amount of time.
So, the smartest thing to do is begin with the actual data used. As we said, a slip of the finger could be the guilty culprit in the too high or too low assessment. Ask for the worksheet used and double check all of the information. Make note of any mistakes (or just keep moving forward if there are no errors) and begin putting together the documents you'll use to argue your appeal. The most common include:
- Maps and land surveys
- An appraisal of the home or the commercial real estate
- Photos of features (like pools) that are not functional or worth the amount on the valuation
- A report from a contractor that shows the property requires repair work, and what that repair work is going to cost
- Architectural renderings showing numbers of baths and other spaces
- Comps of your own. Though the Gwinnett County property tax assessor may have used comps to tabulate your assessment, you can do the same. You want to gather actual prices of real estate sales in the neighborhood. You can also look for properties similar to yours, but not in the same neighborhood, and gather data about their taxable values. Again, if you find that these are over or under valuated, it may help.
After putting together the documents, you submit the appeal and then wait to see what they determine. Of course, by this point, you may be reading about the hard work and the documentation and thinking, "Hold on! I have to do all of this and have no idea even where to begin!" And even more worrying is that you have that tiny window of time to get it all done.
This leads many to think that they will forget about it, skip it and just pay the small differences. Yet, the simple truth is that those differences are rarely ever small. For example, experts have shown that the national average savings for those who appeal is close to 20% off the original assessment. Pay that 20% more over the course of the three or more years between assessments, and it makes sense to take action.
With so much at stake, it pays to find the help you need if you want to submit an appeal but feel overwhelmed by the tasks at hand.
If you believe that mistakes were made in the assessment you recently (or even not so recently) obtained from the Gwinnet County Property Tax Assessor, contact the team at Fair Assessments, LLC .Offering more than 20 years of experience in tax reduction and property valuation success stories, they provide both commercial and residential clients great opportunities for succeeding in any appeal of their assessments. Let their team take all of the hard work and time-consuming research off of your hands. They'll make sure deadlines are met, all important documents are submitted, and that every little detail the tax assessor needs to accurately reconsider your valuation is uncovered and turned over.
