Filing a Form to Reduce Your Property Taxes is FREE!!
August 31, 2009
I received a notice that looked official and allegedly came from the Property Tax Review Board. Based on several phone calls that I received from friends and former clients, this mailing was quite widespread. Just as it caught my attention, it caught the attention of the folks who called me. Apparently a number of folks also contacted the San Bernardino County Assessor's office as the Sunday morning Sun newspaper had a brief notice on the front page of the Business Section warning residents of "unscrupulous companies."
The mailing that I received suggested that I could save $546 in property taxes and they would file the appropriate forms for a fee of $189. Putting aside the fact that I could file for a reassessment from the San Bernardino County Assessor's office for absolutely no charge, the property referenced in the letter is presently assessed below its present market value as we have owned it 32 years.
If you think the your property might be eligible for a lower assessed value, you could call your professional real estate agent and request a market analysis. You might even try http://www.realestateabc.com/ for an estimated value.
For straight from the government information go to http://www.sbcounty.gov/ and the home page has a great description of the reassessment process.
The scammers are always out there and I must admit the notice that they sent truly looked official.
I received a notice that looked official and allegedly came from the Property Tax Review Board. Based on several phone calls that I received from friends and former clients, this mailing was quite widespread. Just as it caught my attention, it caught the attention of the folks who called me. Apparently a number of folks also contacted the San Bernardino County Assessor's office as the Sunday morning Sun newspaper had a brief notice on the front page of the Business Section warning residents of "unscrupulous companies."
The mailing that I received suggested that I could save $546 in property taxes and they would file the appropriate forms for a fee of $189. Putting aside the fact that I could file for a reassessment from the San Bernardino County Assessor's office for absolutely no charge, the property referenced in the letter is presently assessed below its present market value as we have owned it 32 years.
If you think the your property might be eligible for a lower assessed value, you could call your professional real estate agent and request a market analysis. You might even try http://www.realestateabc.com/ for an estimated value.
For straight from the government information go to http://www.sbcounty.gov/ and the home page has a great description of the reassessment process.
The scammers are always out there and I must admit the notice that they sent truly looked official.
posted by shirley harry at 7:46 AM
1 Comments:
Some of these firms are charging thousands of dollars for something that can be done for free. For those of you who are not familiar with how to file an assessment change, here are the basic steps to do so:
1. Obtain an application for change assessment at the county assessors' office.
2. Locate recent sales data (last six months or so) that supports a lower property value then your current assessment.
3. File the application for change assessment (decline in value appeal) with the clerk of your appeals board.
I actually wrote a "how-to" article about filing a decline in value appeal. Save yourselves some money and do it on your own. If your interested in checking out the article, the link is as follows:
http://www.kellerwilliamsusa.com/atj/user/AdditionalGetAction.do?pageId=175663
Post a Comment
<< Home