My Journey Fighting the Man

After living in my newly purchased home for a few months, I noticed that something was not quite right. It seemed as if my property taxes were remarkably high compared with other properties in town in the same price range. That is where my journey began…

Property taxes in PA are based on your home’s assessment.  Pennsylvania’s assessment model is a “base year” system meaning that all properties within a county are appraised at what they would be worth in a certain year and then a multiplier is utilized to assess homes built after that time.  The base year for Montgomery County is 1996 and the common level ratio (multiplier) is 1.61.  So if your home is assessed at $200,000, in the taxing authority’s eyes, your home is worth $322,000 today (200,000x 1.61).

I applied this basic formula to the home that I had just bought and found that the Assessment Office was valuing my home at 50%-60% more than what I had paid for it.  I thought that I had gotten a pretty good deal on the home, but not that good of a deal.  I appealed my assessment to the Board of Assessments.

The Board of Assessment sent out their own appraiser to verify home measurements and establish what he felt the value of the home was.  I was notified of a hearing date and preceded to plead my case to the board.  Prior to purchase, my home had sat on the market for a while at prices much lower than what it was assessed at, so I figured that I had a solid argument for a substantial reduction. The board does not give immediate decisions.

About a month later I recieved a letter from the board stating that my assessment has been reduced about 8% suggesting a fair market value of 40%-50% more than what I had paid for it.  I thought that it was a joke.  How could there be that much of a discrepancy?   At the bottom of the notice there was a statement that if I wanted to appeal the decision to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, that I could do so.  While I anticipated a $2,000 to $3,000 per year reduction in taxes, that tax savings would be burned through in an instant if I hired a lawyer.  So I decided to go it on my own.

When appealing, you are fighting the School District (in my case Wissahickon), the Township, the County, and the County Assessment Office along with all of their lawyers.  I probably bit off more than I could chew, but I am pretty bull headed when it comes to things that I am right about, so I was resolute in my convictions.  I began reading any case law available on line, the legal statues that talk about property taxes, pretty much anything that I could find that I thought might help.  I happened to stumble across an article that discussed how property square footage was calculated in PA.  While ANSI (American National Standards Institute) puts out guidance, it is essentially up to the assessor as to what he wants to count and what he doesn’t want to count.

There were some interesting items that I discovered.  Unfinished basements, decks, covered porches (unheated), garages, attics, and finished attics (that do not have a certain amount of head room) are not considered square footage in the livable square footage calculation.  I hired an appraiser and found that the livable square footage on my home was indeed over stated in the county records by nearly 33%! I included this in my appeal paper work. The county proceeded to send out the same appraiser who made the original assessment.  He revised his original finding down an additional 161 SF lower than my appraiser’s number!  He came out to my home a 3^rd time and revised his number up to be within 5% of my number.  Success!  Finally, this should be done.  Error acknowledged.  “Lets do right by the tax payer.”

That didn’t happen…

The Wissahickon School District made an offer that would have put the market value of my home at roughly $100,000 more than what I paid for it.  You would think that they would be going the other direction since they over collected on the property for 15-16 years.  Had my square footage been correctly stated in the first place, the assessment would have clearly been lower than what they were offering (basis of my case now).  I went to a Wissahickon School Board meeting and addressed the board directly in an attempt to save my tax dollars from being frivolously used to fight against me in a battle that they would not win.  I showed them the error and how much extra they would be paying on their own property taxes should the same error been made to them (all based on publically available information).

Nothing.  No, “we will look into it” or “sorry about that” or “my bad” or email after the fact saying “we are going to do right by you.”  Nothing.

It has been around 10 months since this all began and I am moving forward to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.  The unfortunate thing is that I estimate the couple that owned the house before me (and had it built) overpaid their taxes by around $40,000 during the time that they lived there.  All based on a mistake or lie.  That couple still lives in the area.  The lawyers from the other side are essentially fighting me with the money that they over collected in property taxes in order to continue over collecting from me.

I recommend anyone reading this to check their home square footage and assessment with the correct multiplier and make sure that the numbers are at least close to what is stated in the Assessor’s office.  Just Google “Montgomery County PA property info” and the link should pop up.  You can search for your information.  Deadline for appealing the 2014 tax year is August 1.