If anyone would have protested the assessment values of their homes, I would have thought it would have been the Aboite township residents. I waited and waited. I waited and thought and waited and thought. Something was missing, I just could not put my finger on it. Why wouldn't the folks in Aboite rise up and be outraged that their homes were being taxed as more than their homes could or would sell for? Why would they not sue?
Until I ran into this little gem, and then it all begin to make sense.
The home that David Long lives in was devalued in 1995. It was appraised at $162, 100 but the previous owner only paid taxes on an assessed value of $54,030. In 1998 this home was sold to the Longs for $325,000 but was assessed at only $162, 100 for tax purposes.
Do you see a pattern here? It is the same pattern that Judge ThomasFisher of the Tax Court discovered that some property owners were not paying their fair share. But,in 2002 the Long family was still not paying taxes on the amount that the home was purchase for during the first reassessment after Judge Fisher found the assessors were not following the law. Long's home in 2002 was assessed at $296,000 and not at the $325,000 purchased price in which the home was purchased back in 1998.
In 2006, under the annual trending for assessing property the Longs' home is now assessed at $358, 500. For the first time the Long's home is being taxed at close to the home's true value as required by law.
However, this price tag does not apply to all homeowners that have lived in homes in the Aboite area long before the Longs arrived. Many of these homes are older and have aged out or has lost some of their value. This is the devaluation theory that Senator Long put forth to explain to the older residents as to why they should not sue or request for a reassessment of their property value.
If these folks do request a reassessment on their property true value David Long's property runs the risk of being appraised at less than the $325,000 in which he paid back in 1998. David Long's investment will have lost money after only nine years. But that is the risk that every home owner takes when purchasing a home at the market value or paying more than a home is worth at the time of purchase. So folks would call this predatory lending when it occurs to an unsuspecting buyer when the the true value is less than the purchase price.
And that's the rest of the story from a woman.
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