Frequently the Assessor’s Office building records are not accurate since the Assessor is a massive processing government organization and possibly the work was done very fast, or the information varied without their knowledge or there was documentation that slipped through the cracks. The reasons are endless, however the great thing is that the answer to this problem is simple. Every property there is a building record with the Assessor’s Office which includes a drawing of the shell of the house and details about the home.
Many Assessors have very detailed records depending on their resources, employees and workload. The data on your home are for value reasons even though other professionals in real estate use the data provided by the Assessor to confirm home records. From the drawing the square footage of the property is calculated, then the description includes the type of property, the use type, and any other details that may be relevant to the value of the property.
The Assessor’s information is in reality is generally used by real estate professionals as official. Essentially, making sure your records are accurate will more than likely affect the value of your home since the banks, buyers, sellers, etc. all use these records to confirm the structures on your property. The Assessor’s records affect most real estate purchases and sales despite the fact that the Assessor’s Office makes no representation of having information for anything other than assessment purposes.
So often building records for your house are wrong, it easy to have the Assessor change them and often this will not result in an increased assessment. Get in touch with your county Assessor and your request will create a public service inquiry to have your information updated. The public service inquiry will be forwarded to staff memeber who will converse with you and/or maybe visit your house for dimensions or discover from you over the phone what the differences are in the records and adjustment accordingly. Commonly, the Assessor’s Office will use the data you give them over the phone or internet for a straight forward update such as a bedroom or bathroom count adjustment. Typically, this is uncomplicated for the Assessor to deal with. If there is new contruction to your property that you built and has not been assessed, it possibly could result in an increase in propety taxes however, if the reason it hasn’t been assessed is the Assessor’s fault there is likely a statute of limitations. When you speak to the Assessor about this find out if you will have an increase in your property taxes and make sure you document their response and the person who gave you that information. Remember, there are many facets to assessments and you want to be covered should you be misinformed.
Note that if changes were done prior to your purchase of the home it possibly is construction before transfer and if you acquire the residence with the structure differences already there, often thre will be no rise in your property taxes that would result from the record update. The logic behind this is, is that you paid for those improvements at the time you purchased the residence and so there is no change in worth. But, if you enhanced your residence then there could be an increase in the value. The Assessor may ask for information and documentation from when you purchased the residence such as the listing information. Often, the Assessor will go based on your word and will update the records through a phone call especially for simple adjustments.
Remember as you think about requesting these changes and adjustments that the Assessor’s Office is usually not connected to your city. The Assessor needs truthful records so the assessments of your home are accurate. The Assessor usually doesn’t care if what you have on your property is legal or not because even when not permitted it may add value to your property. The Assessor wants to keep an open channel of communication with the taxpayers so they generally don’t get into the habit of reporting anything whether structure related or not. The Assessor’s Office is not generally in the practice of telling the city what is or isn’t on your property. When taxpayers think of the Assessor or the City they often think these government entities as the same when they are usually totally seperate.
About the Author: Valerie Faltas, Property Tax Expert worked in assessments for over four years and assessed over 6,000 properties. Valerie is also a licensed appraiser, real estate investor and consultant. She left the Assessor to make information public she could not disclose while she worked there.
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