If you own any real estate in the state of Georgia, you’ve got a property tax bill coming.
I can’t say exactly when it will happen. I just know it’s going to happen sometime this year, probably around the first week in June. And when it happens, you’ll likely wish you had done something ahead of time to make the amount of the tax smaller.
That’s because you have probably been paying more than your fair share of property tax. But let not your heart be troubled.
Your General Assembly, in its infinite wisdom, has provided a process to allow you to force your local tax assessor to carefully review the assessed value he has assigned to your property.
That typically does not happen every year, and because of the recent decline of housing prices, such a review may save you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars.
Here then are my recommendations for your year-end property tax review.
1. Know that unless your property is currently under an appeal from last year, it is not possible to revisit your property tax assessment for 2014. It’s over and done with. It is, however, your responsibility to take control of the process for 2015.
2. Also know that there is absolutely no relationship whatsoever between the assessed value for property tax purposes and the real market value of the property. While all of us want our homes to be worth as much as possible, you needn’t worry that a low assessment will hurt your selling price should you later decide to sell.
3. Beginning Jan. 1, 2015, every owner has the opportunity to file a “taxpayers return of property” with the tax assessor of the county where the property is located. This form simply notifies the assessor of your opinion of the value of the property in question on Jan. 1, 2015. The form is known as “Georgia PT-50R” and can be found on my website at Money99.com.
4. The form requires only your name, parcel ID, property address, and your estimate of value for the land and improvements as they existed on New Years Day 2015. It should take less than 10 minutes to fill out, even less if you have last year’s tax bill or can log on the county tax website to gather your account info.
5. Your estimate of value should be based on sales of comparable homes which occurred during the 12-month period between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2014. If possible, find at least three sales which are a) similar in age, style and size to yours; b) have the same bedroom and bathroom count; and c) are located within a mile of your home.
6. Make sure your estimate of value for 2015 is lower than the assessed value assigned for last year. Because this is simply your estimate of value, you don’t have to be able to back it up with data. Filing the form simply tells the county you want them to re-examine their estimate of value before they propose a valuation for 2015 later this year.
6. Local real estate agents can help you locate these sales and also provide data such as square footage, so that you can calculate a “dollars per square foot” average for your estimate. Alternatively, you can choose to hire a real estate appraiser to establish a value, but that usually costs several hundred dollars.
7. If you purchased the property in 2014, you are required to file a return. Include a copy of the HUD-1 settlement statement to establish value for 2015. Georgia law now requires counties to accept the purchase price from the previous year as the value for the following tax year.
8. Your completed Georgia Form PT-50R should be mailed or hand delivered to the local Board of Tax Assessors by April 1, 2015. And the sooner you do it, the better your odds of gaining the attention of a real person at the assessor’s office. Every day that passes between now and April 1 will mark an exponential increase in demands on their time. Eventually they will simply be unable to respond to review requests.
For your best chance of success, my advice is to file your return during the month of January.
Some counties allow you to file your form online. However, the safest method of filing is to hand it to the assessor and get a receipt. Submitting that paperwork tells the county you want them to review 2014 sales data before they calculate a proposed valuation for 2015.
We’ll examine each of these steps in more detail as we move into the new year, but the bottom line is this: You can save significant sums of money by making sure the county is not overcharging you for your property taxes.
On my website at Money99.com, you can download my 2015 Special Report titled “How To Lower Your Property Tax In Georgia.” In the report, we look at the new Georgia laws surrounding property taxation and how they can benefit owners. It also contains current contact information for the board of tax assessors in every county in Georgia.
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