Wednesday morning, I went to the county courthouse to challenge my property tax assessment. (I talked more about receiving the notice from the county in a previous post.) When I arrived, 4 of my neighbors were already there! Apparently, they over-assessed our entire neighborhood. Hopefully that will give me some leverage to get mine changed, too…
The process of the challenge was, for lack of better words, uneventful and deflating. When my name was called, I walked into the office of one of the three Assessment Board members with my bank’s appraisal printed out, noting that the bank believed it to be worth $50,000 less than what the county wanted to tax me for. Since I purchased this house 1 1/2 years ago, I believe there should be no problem in getting this overturned, but that was not the impression the board member gave me. She glanced over the assessment, wrote down a few numbers on another sheet, and, with a very bored expression, told me I’ll receive a new letter in March detailing what they decided.
What? I have to wait 2 more months to get this resolved with no real indication that anything will be done for me? I live in one of the most corrupt areas in the region (if not the whole country), so not getting any affirmation immediately sends of warning bells in my head that the only reason she even let me in her office to challenge it is because she was legally required to. *sigh* I suppose that’s the best I can do. Now to wait for March to roll around and pray that there is a secondary appeal process if they do screw me over…
