The Fulton County Board of Tax Assessors sent some of their assessment notices with a date of May 19, 2017 and with a last date to appeal of July 3, 2017. With no appeal, after this date your 2017 Fulton property tax bill will be based on the value in the tax assessment notice. Fulton County is required, as are all counties in Georgia, to send an assessment notice to all property owners annually. Fulton has many more assessment notices to send before June 30.
According to our sources the Fulton County Board of Tax Assessors are sending some large tax assessment increased this year. This is due to lax standards for testing their assessments against market values in defined areas and letting the market get ahead of them. Some areas, like those along the Beltline for example, will see very large increases. Although some areas are going to receive several years’ worth of market value increase this year, some of the tax assessment staff think that they have done a good job with this revaluation.
A Fulton County property tax appeal is a right of all property owners provided they appeal the tax assessment within the 45 day appeal period. Appealing can be accomplished through completing the Georgia appeal of assessment form PT-311-A. This form can be hand delivered to the Fulton County Board of Tax Assessors or mailed, although care must be taken to send this certified mail for proof of delivery.
Another option is to file a property tax appeal via the Tax Assessor’s website. The online appeal option is encouraged by the Fulton County Board of Tax Assessors as this allows them to process appeals more quickly. By filing your tax appeal online you register with the Appeal Resolution Center which allows you to keep track of your property tax appeal.
The initial filing of your appeal is to the tax assessors. You must chose an option for the second level of appeal if you are not satisfied with what the tax assessors do for you. We always choose the Fulton County Board of Equalization, which is a free option. Some other options are a Hearing Officer, although there are restrictions on who can use this option, and arbitration.
Filing a Fulton County property tax appeal is not a quick process. Fulton County always receive many appeals and it takes them many months, even years sometimes, to get through them all. During this time, provided you filed an appeal, you will get a temporary tax bill. This bill will be based on your previous year value, or 85% of the current year value, whichever is higher, until the appeal is resolved. Do not ignore this tax bill. The Fulton County Tax Commissioner is infamous for selling property tax liens on property as soon as they are able.
As a former manager for the Fulton County Board of Tax Assessors I have knowledge of the entire process that they use to generate these tax assessments. It has its strengths, it has its weaknesses. If you are busy with work and family and you would like someone to handle your Fulton County property tax appeal for you, I hope you will consider Fair Assessments, LLC. We get approximately 80% of our Fulton County tax appeals reduced assessments, and we always get these resolved at the Board of Equalization which helps to cap your tax assessment for two additional years.
For the people that have the time and inclination to handle their own appeal we have a resource center that can help you with this task. We have pdf guides and videos that can help you get started on a successful property tax appeal. There’s a wealth of free information at your fingertips.
