It’s that time of the year again.  If you want to dispute your property’s assessed value, the deadline is coming up in 2 weeks (September 15th.)   If you bought your house after June 2003, there is a fairly good chance that the value shown on your tax assessment is too high.

The County Tax Assessor has been adjusting these values, in what I consider to be a preemptive move.  If you paid $600K, and it is now really worth $485K, the assessor may have adjusted it down to $540K already, thinking that you will be satisfied, and won’t bother appealing it.  At a 1.1% tax rate though, it may be worth $600 more in your pocket to get it reduced further.  (I can always find a way to do something with an extra $600!)

Don’t pay anyone to file this for you!  You can do it yourself at no cost. If you need the comps to support a lower value, please call or email me, and I’ll help you out.  (The comps need to have closed before 4/01/2010.)

See the rules and forms at the Orange County Tax Assessor’s Website.

If you lost your assessed value form that was mailed last month, go to the Tax Collector’s site and look it up by your address.

I don't understand why they have not sold this house yet.  I first saw it last June (2009), as a new REO listing priced at $449,900.  It needed a lot of work both inside and outside.  My client decided it was too much, so he bought something else.  This home went into escrow on 7/19/2009, then fell out on 8/23/2009.  At that time, they raised the price to $529,900.  I had assumed that they did some upgrades to justify the new price, but have not been back to see.  They since reduced the commission (on 11/04/2009) then reduced the price to $469,900 (12/07/2009).  The price was reduced again to $449,900 on 5/25/2010 and appeared to go in to escrow a month later.  It just fell out again yesterday!  If it has been upgraded, some additional photos would definitely help.