How to appeal the reassessment is missing from the media discussion

Interesting to read the local news' coverage about the reassessment. The failure to follow the law in the mailing of the reassessment form 11 to all homeowners. The denying homeowners who did not get an reassessment form 11 from appealing their reassessment because the assessor's office refused to mail them the form in order to prevent them from appealing the first year.

But, some home owners are not aware that this reassessment is all made up and if they do not appeal this reassessment, they are stuck with all the made up stuff! From the Journal Gazette, Frank Gray's article:

Homeowners aren’t stuck. If they believe their homes have been overvalued for tax purposes, they can appeal.

In fact, county officials are urging people who believe their assessments are out of line to come forward and seek to have it corrected

.

But if they don't that means they are STUCK!“

In theory, it’s right on,” O’Day said.

, from Gray's article.



The fact that some trending values were determined by sheriff sales, did not stop the assessors officials. This is not a long arm deal in determining the value of a home, but that did not stop the assessors.

The process, which O’Day said is still evolving, has run into unexpected problems. There are neighborhoods with lots of abandoned, boarded-up homes. No house had changed hands in years. The only way of determining home values was through sheriff’s sales. In other areas, because of a lack of sales, assessors had to look at houses from other, perhaps not equivalent areas to come up with values.

, continues the article.

Auctions, are not a market of free actors wrangling over a deal. But all that is just noise to confuse the public. The media has yet to get to the meat of the problem. How does the citizen appeal the corrupt practices that are going on in the assessor, auditor and treasures.

How do we know its corrupt?

And some were even undervalued. O’Day has gotten calls from people protesting that their homes are worth far more than the county says. Assessors will likely be happy to hear appeals from them, too.

These folks did not know they were given favor to quiet them and reduce their tax liability. It's lower in value only to reduce their tax payment not the true value of the home.

By these folks coming forward it proves that the assessor offices are still corrupt. This was the goal of the court to point out that it's not the STATE of Indiana but local corruption within each of their city.

Hopefully the media can begin to answers the relevant questions for homeowners, soon.

What are the type of evidences that is needed for an effective appeal?

What is the deadline for filing an appeal?


How many copies are need of the form when filing an appeal?

Who gets copies of these forms?

How some can the taxpayer expect a response on their appeal?


What is the next step if the assessor does not act on the appeal in a timely fashion?


Where are the answer to the property owners relevant question in order to prevent them from being duped of their money?


Or do they have to go to the people who are duping them out of their money for these important answers to their question?

Local Reassessment

Reading the local bloggers it does not surprise me more of the bloggers are not outraged by the latest reassessment conducted by their local assessor office. No one wants to be seen as the trouble maker or the whistle blower. It is not a beauty picture. Ask Valerie Plame whom identity was revealed by an aide to Richard B. Cheney to reporters. Of course Plame has finally been validated with Libby being found guilty. But Plame's face is known to the world, now.

And look at the War in Iraq. Voters are now aware that the President lied. But the troopers are still fighting the war, and the Democrats and the Republicans are still bickering about whose fault it is. It's both parties fault.

Now back to the local reassessment. True these local government folks are not appraisers. But that's what they did. Who said that local officials were qualified for their position? Who? These folks took a look at market values in your area, not necessarily in your neighborhood and smashed a price on it. Trending value is what they called it, to up the ante on collecting more money from the value of your home. Is your home that value? No! Is that lying? Yep! So what are you going to do about it?

First you will compare with your neighbors and see if they got screwed more than you in the reassessment. Next you will rationalize in you mind for justifying why you would allow incompetent people to lie to you about the worth of your property without taking any actions.

You'll say things, like well I was able to get exemptions to reduce my liabilities. Whereas the other suckers not qualifying for such exemptions are gonna pay more. Not.

You'll see things like, well my taxes stayed the same, so I don't care. Wrong.

I know folks in the blogosphere took simply math, I just know they did. So please example to me, why they are not raising cane about the reassessment in the blogosphere. But they can yell all day about that dang gone George Bush, Jr. Bush, Jr. ain't the only one stealing your money out of your family pockets.

What you are screaming about Bush doing is the exact same thing local folks, politics is doing. It's local folks.

The Sunday Funnies-Property Reassessment by your local government

Amanda Iacone reports on Fort Wayne.Com about reassessment. Iacone reports:

All of the property updates – about 130,000 – will have been mailed by Monday. About 20,000 properties had no change in their value and will not receive the forms, said Ryan Keuneke, chief deputy assessor.

I posted here:

The assessors offices are mailing out form 11 R/A. I know many of you want to believe that your leaders are honest people !!! But be warned because your new tax bill will increase and it has nothing to do with Fort Wayne Community School but greed from your local officials to build Harrison Square.

This notification form 11 R/A is an important part of the reassessment because it starts the second phase of the reassessment process. The second phase involves a review process by the property owners on the accuracy of the assessors assessment. Any property owner wanting to challenge the accuracy of the assessment must file an appeal in writing for review of the assessment on form 130 or form 133 within 45 days of the notification.

The mailing is not an update. This statement that your property has been assessed at a certain values based on faulty record keeping in the assessor office from years and years of abuse in assessing property is a notice. This abuse of power from assessors caused Judge Thomas Fisher to determine that it was so widespread that Fisher promulgated rulings governing a uniformed way of assessing property and a way to measure whether or not these assessors were playing by the rules.


So, out of the office and on to the streets, assessors had to learn how to assess property and record property. Time was of the essence. Going door to door many homeowners were not letting folks in or were not at home. So assessor birth a way to get the job done in the mandated time period.

The updates reflect changes in assessed property values. Many properties increased in value because the last time properties were assessed, local assessors used sales and market data from 1999

.

Nope, it was made up. Hired new inexperience computer techies and manipulated the system. And that's what they did. Many homes were sold to capture the over assessment creating sales disclosures that were based on misinformation. Homes were not worth the values and the unsuspecting buyers were duped. And these sale disclosures are what the assessor offices is using to duped the public in this year current assessment. That is if homeowners do not appeal.


Of course some property was assessed in the proper fashion but many inconsistency existed and still do to this day. The State was outraged at the greed of the local government. So the State legislators to protect homeowners from the greedy locals increased the homestead deduction, place a circuit breaker on the taxing amount, and required annual assessment.
From the State:

The circuit breaker became law in 2006 with the passage of House Enrolled Act 1001. It is aimed at helping Hoosiers by ensuring they don’t pay more than 2 percent of their property value in taxes. The goal is to provide predictability in tax bills and equity among Hoosier taxpayers.

The Circuit Breaker is slated to become mandatory statewide for residential property in 2007. Homeowners will not see the potential Circuit Breaker impact until their 2008 tax bill. The circuit breaker expands to include all property types in 2009. Taxpayers will not see the impact of the expansion until their 2010 tax bill.

State law now requires that properties be reassessed each year so that property tax bills increase bit by bit instead of a large increase every several years, County Treasurer Bob Lee said.

The quote by the Treasure Bob Lee, here's another take on it, from the state.

Under the old system, real estate was generally only reassessed every 10 years. That left taxpayers with a large change in their assessments every decade. Annual adjustments curb that large lump sum change in assessments by annually adjusting values based on sales

.
The annual assessment would prevent sticker shock to homeowners. And homeowners would be better able to prove their property values did not triple in value every year. This placed the inexperienced staff back into their offices researching sales disclosure form to increase their knowledge and record keeping in trying to make money for the city. Rather than truly assess property value to meet the budget.



The willy-nilly reassessment caused sticker shock and many high end tax payers were outraged and threaten to go to court. Deals were made. The squeaky wheels property owners assessment were reconfigured undocumented, just a number change in the system. The unsuspected just bite the bullet of the egregious increase. The number of appeals were reduced and unknown to the public. The meme-journalists only reports those folks that would not go away. The number of folks who demanded immediate reduction to the proper values of their homes and was cut a deal are missing in the informal appeal process.


Oh the heading,

Tax growth to hit 14.5%; past delays fuel increase

The tax growth is more than 14.5% and it's has nothing to do with delays. More from the state

Hoosier taxpayers could see an increase or a decrease in their tax bills after the annual adjustment of their assessment based on their location and the expenditures by local government.

In essence, the assessment represents a property owner’s share of the overall tax burden for a specific area.

Tell that to those who work for city government, as they over assess and collect field of revenue to pay for a hotel, baseball stadium......

In the newspaper

Rep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, ranking minority member on the House Ways and Means Committee, said about 7 percent of that is a direct result of trending.

.That suggest that of the disclosed 14.5 per cent in property value increase is too high. But the real increase is hidden in the details.