Hi,
I have recently Buyed a new Home and Tax of that home is too high in prospective to the cost of the home.
Please can anyone help that how can i reduce my property tax?

http://senate.michigan.gov/gop/publi...Assessment.pdf

Didn't you find out the amount of the tax BEFORE buying a new house? This is one of hte major factors you need to take into consideration>

In most cities there's a simple procedure you can follow. All you do is go to the Tax Assessor's (it could be city, county or both) and fill out the appropriate "Tax Protest" form. You'll have to provide some documentation as to why you believe the assessed value on your home should be reduced such as an formal (recent) Appraisal or your Closing Statement showing you paid less than the appraised value for your home. There's normally a fixed time period each year for filing your request (such as between January 1 and June 30 - if you miss those dates you have to wait until the following year. The Tax Assessor's office will give you those dates and the necessary forms.

Your request will be processed in due course. You may be asked to attend a formal Hearing to make your case and there's a good likely hood the city or county tax appraiser will want to inspect your property. It may take several months for the final decision to be rendered.

There are also companies that will handle the entire process for you but they will charge you a fee - usually a percentage (say 25%) of the reduction, if any.

If you believe and have proof your assessed value of your home is too high it is to your advantage to file the protest as you could end up paying lower Real Estate Taxes.

We've been successful in getting the Assessed Value on our homes reduced several times. The process is pretty easy. Good Luck!

I hope you didn't buy that house in New Jersey? Our taxes only know one direction......up...up...way up!

But "Big Daddy Christie" says he is "working on it"!

It's too late to be a helpful comment, but I too am wondering why you bought a house if the taxes were much too high for the property. I can't imagine not checking out that important item BEFORE buying.
But yes, the good news is that it is often fairly easy to get the taxes lowered if indeed they are too high for your recently paid price. Assuming the taxes were based on a value when the property was "worth" a lot more, then you should be able to get relief. If on the other hand your taxes are pretty much the same as for other homes in the area that have sold for the same price, then you may have a hard time proving the taxes are higher than they should be.

Neo:

that's my question to the OP, are they too high because of overvalue, or are they too high because the levy is set high?

If the OP is new to the area, they need to get an understanding on the way this community taxes. For example, all government function may come through property taxes and have no sales taxes. Or it could be low property taxes and higher sales taxes. The cost of total taxes will likely be about the same in either event, it becomes a function of when and how you pay for your services.

A lot of people think their taxes are too high, but it is wishful thinking. They are only too high if the same rate/formula isn't being used for your house as comparable houses in the exact same area. I suppose some math errors could be made but in my area I've never heard of one. It is a fairly simple process where I live and is basically a certain rate multiplied by the square footage of your house, and same for the size of the land. There are some slight adjustments to that (such as my house backs onto a state parkland so it is valued slightly higher than those that do not), but that is the basic formula. So for the property tax to be off, they would have to get the footage wrong or something very basic. You can check that where I live as all the property tax bills are public, you just go into the county's website and can see what your neighbors houses are assessed at.

But the property tax rate doesn't have anything directly to do with what someone pays for their house where I live. IN a very broad sense, of course, it does, as it is based on the area's general market values by swuare foot, but if one person got a great bargain and paid $100K lower than someone else for the same type and size house, they wouldn't have a lower property tax.

Every state I've lived in (only 3) has based property taxes on the assessed value of the home. They basically take their appraisal and multiply it by a factor based upon the use of the property - i.e. Agriculture, Residential, or Commercial. If you get an appraisal that is high, your taxes will be higher. Tax appeals are usually successful when you can show the value they assess from were high by showing comparables, actual sales, etc.

In my county, property taxes are posted on their website. That way you can compare what you are paying compared to other houses in the neighborhood. Zillow also shows property taxes of each house, but I don't know how accurate they are. If your taxes are higher than comparable houses nearby, the county should have a mechanism to grieve them.

That's why I said, when filing a Tax Assessment Protest you have to provide documentation to support your contention the assessment on your home s too high. It's not WHAT YOU THINK the value should be but rather WHAT VALUE YOU CAN PROVE. Also, it doesn't matter what formula the Tax Assessor uses to arrive at the assessed value - only that the documentation you provide uses the same criteria (appraisals, market value, sales of comparable properties, etc.) and the value you arrive at using that formula ends up being lower.

In most instances properties are not reassessed every year and when they are reassessed they are done so by applying a factor rather than actually making an on site appraisal. Sometime the Tax Assessor raises assessed values in a particular area base on values from recent sales in the area. In some instances the Assessed Value is a percentage of the Market Value. In other instances Assessed Values are based on square footage. So in order to have a successful tax protest you must prove that the value set by the Tax Assessor is too high by using the same criteria and/or formula.

For example, if the Tax Assessor bases the assessed value on square footage (say $200/sq. ft.) and your house is 2,000 sq. ft it should be appraised at $400,000. If, however it's appraised at $500,000 you'll probably win your Protest and get a reduction in Appraised Value to $400,000 which will resort in lower real estate taxes. Likewise if the Appraised Value is base on a percentage of Market Value (say 50% of Market Value) and the house has an Appraised Value (for tax purposes) of $200,000 you could win your Protest if you produced a Closing Statement showing you just paid $300,000 for the house. Obviously, under this scenario, if you paid more than $400,000 for the house you would not prevail with the Protest.

Now, OP may have purchased the home knowing full well what the taxes were but believes, for whatever reason, they are too high. If OP has documentation to support his/her position it will be beneficial to file a Protest. OP has nothing to lose, the worse case scenario is the Protest is denied and the Assessed Value (and R.E. Taxes) remains unchanged. At best, OP gets a reduction in Assessed Value and a lower tax bill.

Where does the OP live? California's system of RE taxes is different from most other states - no need to get into it if she doesn't live in California.

My state also based it on the "assessed" value of the home, but that is a simple calculation based on square footage, mostly. There is some slight adjustments for some things, as I said, but no one inspects your house on the inside, that's for sure. I suppose you could protest in my area if your house was a total dump on the inside, far below any normal standards, so it wasn't worth near what the average price per SF was. I never heard of anyone doing that, but I guess it is possible. But my county doesn't base their assessments on what you individually paid for your house, and I don't really see why that is relevant, so am surprised some places allow that to be the measure of what it is worth. Also, what you paid for it would really be irrelevant if you bought it 40 years ago, so I don't know how that would work. Or if you bought it from a relative like your mother who knocked off half the price.

Anyway, where I live the assessment isn't as personal as what some real estate agent might claim it was worth based on individual characteristics.