In the Atlanta Metropolitan area there are many property tax consulting firms. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, Georgia tax law does not require that the counties appraise all properties every year, and infrequent appraisals often resulted in large percentage increases in value. Also, the county tax assessors’ values were incorrect in many cases and unfair (inequitable) in others. When property owners get large increases in tax assessments and corresponding tax bills in general they are outraged and want to do something about it. That is why there are so many property tax consultants in the Atlanta Metro area.

Recently much news has been made about the increasing house values around the country. Apparently the depths of the Great Recession are behind us and real estate is in full recovery mode. According to the Case-Shiller Atlanta home price index, housing values increased 18.44% year-over-year as of August 2013.

This is, of course, an average increase in house values for Atlanta real estate as a whole. I have found wide disparities from this average as I analyze values by neighborhood throughout the metro area. If we dig into the Case-Shiller Atlanta home price index a little further we can see where some of the variation is coming from.

The Fulton County tax assessors have begun work on the 2013 property tax appeals. Some Fulton County property owners have received no change letters from the tax assessors regarding their 2013 appeals while some have been offered reductions in what is called a 30 day letter. After you receive a reduction offer from the tax assessors you have 30 days to either accept the reduced value or appeal to the second level of appeal, which is the Fulton County Board of Equalization.

Recently, some of the 2013 property tax appeals have been scheduled to be heard by the Fulton County Board of Equalization. As recently as last month, the Board of Equalization was continuing to work on 2012 property tax appeal hearings and even a few 2011 property tax appeal hearings were being heard. They are not done with 2012 hearings, however. It appears that the Fulton County Tax Assessors staff is frequently using the board of equalization hearing as a tool to gain access to properties.

As of July 1, 2013, any appeal related adjustments to value are subject to these new provisions. The taxpayer may be charged interest on tax amounts due when the taxpayer owes the county money after the property tax appeal is resolved. Likewise, the tax commissioner may owe interest on refunds owed the taxpayer after the property tax appeal is resolved.  

In accordance with Georgia Law (OCGA 48-5-264.1), the chief appraiser, other members of the county property appraisal staff, and members of the county board of tax assessors may go upon property outside of buildings, posted or otherwise, in order to carry out the duty of updating property records to facilitate the estimating of the fair market values of taxable property in the county.

My last blog talked about how to appeal your tax assessment and its process. As discussed, you may opt to appeal to the County Board of Equalization, to a Hearing Officer or to an Arbitrator. To help you with your decision, I decided to discuss further how these 3 work and their differences.

After receiving your Notice of Assessment, a taxpayer/property owner may file a  written appeal within 45 days (depending on your county) of Notice Date. Click here to obtain a copy of the appeal form.

As stated in Georgia law, before tax bills are released, all counties should have already issued an Annual Assessment Notice to all taxable real estate owners. This Tax Assessment Notice should be distributed April - June of each year.

The Gwinnett County Tax Assessor’s office has now issued the 2013 Property Tax Bills to the
residential as well as the commercial property owners.

The Fulton County Tax Assessor's staff just can't get enough of being one year behind on their property tax appeal work. Twice in the past month I have been at Fulton County Board of Equalization hearings for tax year 2012 and the staff appraisers have requested a "field check." Once the appraiser produced an aerial photograph of the property in appeal and proclaimed that the size of the building in the County record must be wrong based on the photo alone. The other time the appraiser just seemed unprepared and wasn't willing to present what he had and let the Board make a decision. Again, he claimed that he needed to inspect the property before making any recommendation. 

This would be a reasonable request if this was July of 2012 but it is July of 2013. The worst part is that the Fulton County Tax Assessors have really just begun the process of pushing all of the 2012 appeals through to the BOE. Just like the Fulton County Board of Equalization was hearing 2011 property tax appeals earlier in 2013, they will be hearing 2012 property tax appeals in 2014.