County wants recent appraisal? What the heck for?

[CTNative]

Alright, I have a new situation I would love some advice on, and this Board is always a great place to go for that.

So I bought a house from a family that had owned it for 20 years at the end of 2011 which the County appraised at the time of purchase for property tax purposes at $140K more than what I paid for it, a more than 20% hike! My special assessments were quite high as you can imagine as this was quite a jump from previous years property tax valuations. I filed a property tax assessment appeal as soon as possible which not surprisingly takes a year or so to play out. My appointment is coming up very soon.

I have paid all of the property taxes, so I am current on everything, but in talking to the Appraisers on the phone last month, they require prior to my appointment that I hand over the documents related to purchasing my house (all the escrow documents) as well as the appraisal at that time, and any appraisals since that time. I am not entirely comfortable about handing over all the escrow documentation to the County, but okay because - I have this feeling that they don't believe it was an arm's length transaction.

According to them they are surprised by what I paid and they just need to make sure there is not something untoward with the transaction so they want to review the sale documentation. Okay, so I get that...I guess. But what does a recent appraisal have to do with it? Most people who have had their property recently reappraised have encountered higher appraisal values than last year and certainly higher than 2011, so why would the County want that when supposedly, they can only use comparable sale activity on either side of my purchase date +/- a few months. Why would they want a recent appraisal, "if I have one." That sounds fishy to me.

If I were to provide them with one, it would be like those court cases when someone on the stand yells out something REALLY pertinent to the case, but the Judge tells the Jury to, "strike that." How can you STRIKE THAT!? It's IN - YOUR - HEAD now. So if the County reviews a recent appraisal that is higher than two years ago, how can anyone believe that would not play a part in determining a new assessment price that would be higher than it otherwise would have been had they not seen it.

I am not even sure if I am required by some law to provide them with one, assuming I have one. More oddly, I also JUST received Friday a notice from the County that due to, "certain information [that] has recently come to the attention of the Assessor Department...we are initiating a revision to the referenced assessment as follows:" followed by a $39,000 reduction of the land portion of the original assessment. This is all very odd.

 

[sgip]

Jeeps that bizarre.

Looks like a trip through Santa Ana to visit the County and sit down with someone about this. Bring your HUD-1, the purchase contract, and any purchase related documents like REO agreements/Short Sale Agreements, etc. Your Realtor should have some of this data if you're unable to resurrect it all.

Very curious what they are fishing for.

 

[test]

Doesn't your property belong to you?  If you have to pay taxes then it doesn't belong to you.  Might as well be renting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aSmu47iEww[/youtube]

 

[CTNative]

Doesn't your property belong to you?  If you have to pay taxes then it doesn't belong to you.  Might as well be renting.

Yeah.............I know. I think about it every time I have to deal with property taxes and I will never understand how my fellow citizens don't realize that property tax is theft. It's rent. Straight up RENT, paid to the Government.

If there is a property tax, it should only be on productive land, i.e., farmland and commercial real estate, etc..., because the land is host to the productivity that is generated upon it and therefore there is a productive means in which to pay the property tax. If the land becomes no longer productive, or useful, or the taxes become too abusive, the businesses using it will simply move to another area.

My house, on my land, produces nothing (aside from home-invading ants), and therefore should not be taxed. Because this is my home and not a commercial business, it is harder, and more costly for me, and more disruptive to its occupants, to move should taxes become too abusive, making abusive taxes more likely.

If the argument is that I personally produce something and therefore my home "produces" simply by the fact that I live in it, then that would mean I was double-taxed, first by the income tax which taxes my production at work and again by my property tax which taxes my production at work, again. No matter how one looks at it, property tax is GOVERNMENT THEFT.

So even if you pay your house off, twice over with the interest, you still have to pay your tithe to our Government for the privilege to squat on THEIR land. And when you get old, and you can't pay it anymore for some reason, the Government snatches back your property to pay the back taxes thus confirming what you knew all those 30 years that you were just paying them "rent." You never owned NOTHIN'.

When I was a kid I always thought it was cool that I could retire on some wooded property somewhere and die peacefully. Because back then I knew what "private property" meant. You could actually OWN something. Now as an adult, I just hope I don't live longer than I have the money to pay my property taxes so they don't steal my house before I'm six feet under.

Yeah...don't get me started. DOH! Looks like you already did...

BTW-Video was very cool.

 

[qwerty]

Doesn't your property belong to you?  If you have to pay taxes then it doesn't belong to you.  Might as well be renting.

Yeah.............I know. I think about it every time I have to deal with property taxes and I will never understand how my fellow citizens don't realize that property tax is theft. It's rent. Straight up RENT, paid to the Government.

If there is a property tax, it should only be on productive land, i.e., farmland and commercial real estate, etc..., because the land is host to the productivity that is generated upon it and therefore there is a productive means in which to pay the property tax. If the land becomes no longer productive, or useful, or the taxes become too abusive, the businesses using it will simply move to another area.

My house, on my land, produces nothing (aside from home-invading ants), and therefore should not be taxed. Because this is my home and not a commercial business, it is harder, and more costly for me, and more disruptive to its occupants, to move should taxes become too abusive, making abusive taxes more likely.

If the argument is that I personally produce something and therefore my home "produces" simply by the fact that I live in it, then that would mean I was double-taxed, first by the income tax which taxes my production at work and again by my property tax which taxes my production at work, again. No matter how one looks at it, property tax is GOVERNMENT THEFT.

So even if you pay your house off, twice over with the interest, you still have to pay your tithe to our Government for the privilege to squat on THEIR land. And when you get old, and you can't pay it anymore for some reason, the Government snatches back your property to pay the back taxes thus confirming what you knew all those 30 years that you were just paying them "rent." You never owned NOTHIN'.

When I was a kid I always thought it was cool that I could retire on some wooded property somewhere and die peacefully. Because back then I knew what "private property" meant. You could actually OWN something. Now as an adult, I just hope I don't live longer than I have the money to pay my property taxes so they don't steal my house before I'm six feet under.

Yeah...don't get me started. DOH! Looks like you already did...

BTW-Video was very cool.

your are making this issue more complex than it is. its not rent, etc. it is just another tax that the govt is raping us for.  income tax, sales tax, property tax, and the worst one is the estate tax. not many people have to worry about the estate tax but that is probably the worst one.

 

[CTNative]

Very curious what they are fishing for.

I'll let you know the outcome. It is very strange. It was a standard sale, no short sale or anything like that. No backdoor deals or questionable exchanges of cash or collaboration between buyer and seller, nobody anywhere in the transaction was related to anyone else, nothing like that. No funny business at all, just a straight up "normal" transaction by all definitions. I never knew, or even now know, the sellers.

We will see what happens during the meeting and I will update my post.

 

[CTNative]

"your are making this issue more complex than it is. its not rent, etc. it is just another tax that the govt is raping us for.  income tax, sales tax, property tax, and the worst one is the estate tax. not many people have to worry about the estate tax but that is probably the worst one."

I don't mean to make it more complex 'just because,' I just mean to explain for others why property tax is evil. I completely agree with you that all of the taxes you mentioned are evil. I get that. You get it to. The problem is that others who read this board have never considered a lot of the concepts that might be discussed here, especially tangential ones like this that are not typical real estate topics. They come here to know how much to pay for a house in some city in OC, not why property taxes are immoral. We should never overlook an opportunity to educate, not just within the echo chamber among ourselves, but for those that read these posts that we never know about.

Common rebuttals to statements about taxation being evil are questions as to how we would pay for Government services without them. I simply offered an alternative solution that does not include property taxes on anyone's house. The idea of private ownership and a world without taxes is so foreign to so many, that without even some simple explanation to the uninitiated, it can sound like we're just the crazy, whacko, conspiratorial, selfish, wealthy, elite, pompous trolls that MSNBC says we are for saying such things.

 

[Irvinecommuter]

"your are making this issue more complex than it is. its not rent, etc. it is just another tax that the govt is raping us for.  income tax, sales tax, property tax, and the worst one is the estate tax. not many people have to worry about the estate tax but that is probably the worst one."

I don't mean to make it more complex 'just because,' I just mean to explain for others why property tax is evil. I completely agree with you that all of the taxes you mentioned are evil. I get that. You get it to. The problem is that others who read this board have never considered a lot of the concepts that might be discussed here, especially tangential ones like this that are not typical real estate topics. They come here to know how much to pay for a house in some city in OC, not why property taxes are immoral. We should never overlook an opportunity to educate, not just within the echo chamber among ourselves, but for those that read these posts that we never know about.

Common rebuttals to statements about taxation being evil are questions as to how we would pay for Government services without them. I simply offered an alternative solution that does not include property taxes on anyone's house. The idea of private ownership and a world without taxes is so foreign to so many, that without even some simple explanation to the uninitiated, it can sound like we're just the crazy, whacko, conspiratorial, selfish, wealthy, elite, pompous trolls that MSNBC says we are for saying such things.

It's a social contract.  If you don't like property taxes...move to an anarchy state.  Seriously,  I don't get the complaint about the existence of taxes.  I get complaints about high taxes but not the existence of taxes.  You need government to maintain a nation state.  You need money to fund a government.  I don't see how property tax or any type of tax is "evil" or "immoral"   

You live on the land and property but basic services have to be provided to that piece of land as well as local services like police/fire department/schools.  Those have to be paid for.  Seriously, think beyond yourself for 5 seconds.

 

[qwerty]

to be clear, i dont have a problem with taxes, i agree services have to be paid for, what i have a problem with as IC stated is how high they can get.  dont get me wrong, paying a lot of taxes is a fortunate situation to be in but its still tough seeing the amount of taxes taken from my paycheck every two weeks.

 

[CTNative]

"Seriously, think beyond yourself for 5 seconds."

"If you don't like property taxes...move to an anarchy state."

I have been studying monetary and fiscal policy, U.S. and European political and economic history, libertarianism, and Austrian and Keynesian economics for nine years now. As of today, I have read 38 books on these subjects. I have my own political/economic blog going on six years now with respectable traffic, I've been active in politics including attending two Tea Party rallies in D.C., being an active member of five political organizations, and writing letters on a regular basis to several Congressmen and once to all of the Supreme Court justices. I assume based on your comment that you have educated yourself on these topics at least as much as I have, and are just as actively engaged in learning about them, even though that is not readily apparent from your responses.

For example...you said:

"I get complaints about high taxes but not the existence of taxes." What is a "high" tax? If you believe that taxes "must exist" then what is the "appropriate" level of taxation and how much, and from whom?

"You need Government to maintain a nation state." Why? And how much Government is needed to maintain a nation state before it exceeds its need and how would we know one that has exceeded its need when we see it?

"I don't see how property tax or any other type of tax is evil or immoral." I know you don't see how. And that's okay. So why not ask "How?" instead of attacking someone about something you are not knowledgeable about? To lash out against someone is to show fear of the unknown, of change, of something different. Why be afraid of something you don't understand when you can just ask questions to learn more about it?

Should we teach our children to be afraid of subjects they don't understand, and attack the presentation of those subjects and those that present them, or to ask questions and try to learn about them? As an enemy of Anarchy, ask yourself which method is more like anarchy and which method is more like civility and then think about which method you employed on me and ask yourself which of us is the real anarchist?

As for me...

I am an agnostic Libertarian who is part of the 99%, I was a Democrat, then I was a Republican, and now I am neither. I don't listen to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, I work in the professional sector and I am very good at what I do, I do not support either of the two mainstream parties, I vote for neither of their candidates, and I am not a paid Republican shill (simply listing the most common verbal abuses I hear). All of this research and self-re-education had to be done on my own time because I have a family and a day job to pay the bills...that is to say, to pay my bills and the bills of all the Americans that leech off of me.

So as you can see, I have spent considerably more time than most people, "thinking beyond myself." That said, I am used to baseless character assassinations from people who do not seem interested in an open discussion about concepts they may not be aware of, but may find informative, and, hold the phone, possibly enlightening and transformative.

Keeping a closed mind protects an individual from challenges to their core beliefs, which can be uncomfortable, and I understand that. But we need to challenge ourselves to accept at least the open discussion of alternate viewpoints. We may be surprised at what we find. I know I was.

As for me moving to an, "anarchy state..." *Yawn*. Boy, that one never gets old. I don't have time to explain it all to you, and based on your personal assault, it would seem you are not the kind of person that wants to learn anything new anyway, but I could be wrong.

If you are open-minded, and truly reject Anarchy as I do, then your civility will be best represented in your apology to me for your verbal assault. From that I can recommend some of the best books on the subject matter for your review and we can always have an engaging discussion on the pros and cons as civilized people do.

The choice is yours.

 

[Irvinecommuter]

"Seriously, think beyond yourself for 5 seconds."

"If you don't like property taxes...move to an anarchy state."

I have been studying monetary and fiscal policy, U.S. and European political and economic history, libertarianism, and Austrian and Keynesian economics for nine years now. As of today, I have read 38 books on these subjects. I have my own political/economic blog going on six years now with respectable traffic, I've been active in politics including attending two Tea Party rallies in D.C., being an active member of five political organizations, and writing letters on a regular basis to several Congressmen and once to all of the Supreme Court justices. I assume based on your comment that you have educated yourself on these topics at least as much as I have, and are just as actively engaged in learning about them, even though that is not readily apparent from your responses.

For example...you said:

"I get complaints about high taxes but not the existence of taxes." What is a "high" tax? If you believe that taxes "must exist" then what is the "appropriate" level of taxation and how much, and from whom?

"You need Government to maintain a nation state." Why? And how much Government is needed to maintain a nation state before it exceeds its need and how would we know one that has exceeded its need when we see it?

"I don't see how property tax or any other type of tax is evil or immoral." I know you don't see how. And that's okay. So why not ask "Why?" instead of attacking someone about something you are not knowledgeable about? To lash out against someone is to show fear of the unknown, of change, of something different. Why be afraid of something you don't understand when you can just ask questions to learn more about it?

Should we teach our children to be afraid of subjects they don't understand, and attack the presentation of those subjects and those that present them, or to ask questions and try to learn about them? As an enemy of Anarchy, ask yourself which method is more like anarchy and which method is more like civility and then think about which method you employed on me and ask yourself which of us is the real anarchist?

As for me...

I am an agnostic Libertarian who is part of the 99%, I was a Democrat, then I was a Republican, and now I am neither. I don't listen to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, I work in the professional sector and I am very good at what I do, I do not support either of the two mainstream parties, I vote for neither of their candidates, and I am not a paid Republican shill. All of this research and self-re-education had to be done on my own time because I have a family and a day job to pay the bills...that is to say, to pay my bills and the bills of all the Americans that leach off of me.

So as you can see, I have spent considerably more time than most people, "thinking beyond myself." That said, I am used to baseless character assassinations from people who do not seem interested in an open discussion about concepts they may not be aware of, but may find informative, and, hold the phone, possibly enlightening and transformative.

Keeping a closed mind protects an individual from challenges to their core beliefs, which can be uncomfortable, and I understand that. But we need to challenge ourselves to accept at least the open discussion of alternate viewpoints. We may be surprised at what we find. I know I was.

As for me moving to an, "anarchy state..." *Yawn*. Boy, that one never gets old. I don't have time to explain it all to you, and based on your personal assault, it would seem you are not the kind of person that wants to learn anything new anyway, but I could be wrong.

If you are open-minded, and truly reject Anarchy as I do, then your civility will be best represented in your apology to me for your verbal assault. From that I can recommend some of the best books on the subject matter for your review and we can always have an engaging discussion on the pros and cons as civilized people do.

The choice is yours.

After all that...you still have not set forth any specifics or alternatives...just that you have a better way.  One can argue about the level of taxation and/or size of government but it's a whole other argument (a silly one IMO) to argue about whether those things should exist. 

This is probably my favorite line: 

All of this research and self-re-education had to be done on my own time because I have a family and a day job to pay the bills...that is to say, to pay my bills and the bills of all the Americans that leach off of me.

I know nothing about you but I don't wish to attack you a person.  I do however severely object to Libertarian in general...it's pretty much selfish IMO.

 

[CTNative]

"After all that...you still have not set forth any specifics or alternatives."

You didn't ask for any. You insulted me instead. And so far, no apology.

 

[Irvinecommuter]

"After all that...you still have not set forth any specifics or alternatives."

You didn't ask for any. You insulted me instead. And so far, no apology.

You're going to wait a long time...if you want to have a discussion please do.  The fact that you got offended speaks volume.

 

[CTNative]

"You're going to wait a long time...if you want to have a discussion please do.  The fact that you got offended speaks volume."

That's the best you can do, huh? I'm sorry I couldn't help you. There are some that I just can't reach.

 

[Irvinecommuter]

"You're going to wait a long time...if you want to have a discussion please do.  The fact that you got offended speaks volume."

That's the best you can do, huh? I'm sorry I couldn't help you. There are some that I just can't reach.

Since you have not set forth anything other than people who don't agree with you are closed-minded and essentially dummies...I am not sure how convincing you have been. 

 

[qwerty]

"I get complaints about high taxes but not the existence of taxes." What is a "high" tax? If you believe that taxes "must exist" then what is the "appropriate" level of taxation and how much, and from whom?

"You need Government to maintain a nation state." Why? And how much Government is needed to maintain a nation state before it exceeds its need and how would we know one that has exceeded its need when we see it?

CTNative - so how would you respond to your own questions? i was reading your response to Irvine Commuter and noted just as he did that you didnt answer your own questions. Id be interested to hear what you have to say to the above questions

 

[CTNative]

This is more info than anyone wanted, but if someone ever comes to this board looking for broad-based appeals information, I opted to be overly-thorough.



Completed my appraisal assessment appeal this morning. The process is relatively simple. You feed the meter at the County Courthouse (One Hr Max Allowed - $0.25/15 min), and sit in the appeals room. Most people are there to argue their case that the County assessment is too high, others are there to amend their application from a one-time appeal to a base year appeal (both explained below), while others are there to postpone their hearing date. Apparently, according to the County Assessor, you can postpone on the phone but they will push that date way, way out, so if you want a shorter postponement period you have to show up in person at your hearing.

The dress code was all over the board. I think I was the only one dressed for business. Everyone else wore jeans, Hawaiian shirts, etc... One person was there as a friend of the person appealing, which apparently you can do as long as the homeowner cites the friend by name as the person that is going to represent them on the original appeals application. As well, husbands can represent wives and so forth, as long as your names are on the deed. The mood was light and informal, to a degree, which is good. He made some funny jokes to us, and shop-talked with the staffers a little, but was all business when it mattered.

The appeals official does a roll call and he explains what you do. He also explains he is appointed to this position and does not work for the County, and therefore has no financial incentive one way or the other, and is not knowledgeable about any of the appeals he is about to hear. As pleasant as that sounds, I am not so sure that is totally accurate. I would hazard a guess that the County would prefer to appoint, and retain employment of, an impartial arbiter that "impartially" upholds higher valuations rather than "impartially" reduces higher valuations. There may be other controls that maintain his independence, I don't know. At least it is not a County official whose bonus and pension is apportioned based on meeting certain "goals" of which we are the means to.

So anyway he goes on to explain that you will come to the front of the room, hold up your right hand, swear you aren't going to lie, then sit down in front of him and two staffers. One (or both) of the staffers is the property assessor who will, "argue" for the County, so to speak. You have to provide four copies of the supporting documentation you brought with you explaining why you believe the county's property assessment is too high.

He explains they will only accept comparable sales plus/minus several months on either side of the purchase date in your argument. You can also either appeal for a one-time valuation reduction (in the case of a "temporarily" declining housing market) or a base year reduction (which lowers the county-appraised value of the property when you bought it and that all future taxation will be based on). You will have made this choice on the appeals form you sent to the county a year prior (it took over a year for me to get in front of the County). You must pay your property taxes in full, and on time, despite this delay in the appeals process.

Obviously the base-year reduction would be the most challenging and the most likely to meet resistance. Fortunately, the County agreed...or more accurately...settled, with me...on the phone prior to the hearing. Last week I sent them at least 50 pages of escrow closing documentation to which they responded asking for the original MLS and the bank appraisal from escrow. I advised them I did not have the actual appraisal but told them how much it was, which was only slightly more than I paid, and that at the time I was nervous about the appraisal because if it came in below the transaction price, the sale might be jeopardized. Fortunately, when I emailed my RE agent for the original MLS listing and asked about any documentation regarding the bank appraisal, she replied with the MLS attached to her email and stated that in her notes she had written the bank appraisal for the same price I had reported to the County.

I fwd'd that email to the County and they called me. They said that because my RE agent had corroborated my bank appraised value, and that the MLS had shown that the property had been posted on the MLS for sale for several months, including a price reduction, they were willing to reduce my County appraised value to the bank appraised value and apply it retroactively to the beginning of last year, if I was agreeable with that. If I wanted to reduce the County appraised value any further than that, I would need to provide evidence of the actual bank appraisal. Considering the County was offering a permanent $150,000 reduction in my base year value, retroactively, I agreed.

I could spend the time making phone calls and emails to get the bank appraisal, but the additional base year reduction would be small. The retroactive application of the adjustment was not all the way back to when I bought the house, but was close enough. I found both of these remaining problems to be acceptable as I believe the County offered a fair resolution. Any more effort on my part at this point, in my mind, would be excessive. I just wanted a "fair" value, and I think I got that. I also have to congratulate the County officials I dealt with as being very professional, friendly and helpful. Even a hard-hearted Libertarian like me can appreciate that.

Because we reached an agreement over the phone last week, all I had to do was be sworn in, hear the assessor announce their proposal and for the official to ask me if I approved of their offer or not. Once approved, they thanked me, and I them, and that was that. All told, it took about 5 minutes from the time my name was called, and fortunately, the appeals that are "pre-settled" go first, so I was first called, first out.

In the end, I can say with a reasonable certainty that at the time I purchased the home, the County was not convinced it was a "normal" transaction because in their mind, I paid too little for the property and apparently it was excessively too little. Personally, I think I paid for what I got, the bank assessor seemed to agree, and so did the sellers. What else are we to rely on except those things to determine "market value?" Apparently the County did not agree.

I believe that is what precipitated such a high assessment. Their questions to me on the phone were very targeted and they did not request comparable sale evidence, but rather evidence that the sale was not unusual in any way. They told me they wanted the MLS report to confirm that the house had been on the market for, "a period of time," and the escrow documentation to, "review the sale." They specifically told me they wanted to make sure it was on the market for awhile (using the MLS) and if there were any price reductions.

They asked me if the sale was a short sale, or some other "unique" type of transaction. I translated this to mean, was this an arm's length transaction or did I know the sellers? I explained this was a standard sale with a 30 year fixed rate and I have never met or known the sellers and that aside from the typical communication that occurs through agents during a normal home sale transaction, we have never spoken in any way. This explanation seemed to go a long way in clearing up whatever the County's preconceived notion of the sale was, and that led to them to asking for targeted documents to backup what I just told them. Again, not a single comparable was asked for.

Also note that they used the bank appraisal as the new County appraised value. That strikes me as odd. Wouldn't they be interested in performing a new appraisal that is perhaps less than their original one, but more than the bank appraisal? I think they used the bank appraisal as a line in the sand for their own assessment because this was never about comparable sales to begin with, this was about a possibly fraudulent transaction.

I think the County's play here was that they thought something untoward was afoot for whatever reason, so they over-assessed the value of the house and assumed if they were correct, nobody would be silly enough to appeal it and expose their fraud, and if the County was incorrect, they would simply "make-it-right" when the time came since anybody with nothing to hide would definitely appeal, and if anybody with nothing to hide didn't bother to appeal, they still win. Win-Draw-Win for them.

If my reasoning above is accurate, that suggests that the supposedly objective valuation of a property by the County is subject to some fairly large subjective assumptions of which we are not privy to unless we challenge them. None of us should be happy about that.



Re: other topic on this string, I will respond, but this is all I could do today and I wanted to report back as soon as I had a result.

 

[changm55]

I think you r absolutely correct...

Kinda reminds me of them Traffic cameras that took pics of speeding violations to catch speeders.. Some cities they can't use cameras as a means of evidence.. but the city still mails u the ticket anyways along with the picture... If u pay without questioning they win, if u fight it or actually show up in court and state the line of law that says u cant use cameras as evidence for moving violations, the judge just dismisses it.... Win-draw for them

 

[zubs]

The county thought you paid too little for your house.  They are probably trying to stop people who buy homes from owners who sell at below market price, and then get another cash payment under the table, or relatives selling to each other.

 

[Irvinecommuter]

The Bank appraisal is being used because it is seen as an "independent" appraisal.  The County does not have the resources to assess each property so a bank appraisal is a fair value for the property.