This is the season of property tax assessments, and your property taxes may have been reassessed at a higher rate. First will come a polite notice of assessment, followed closely by your new tax bill. Depending on home sales in your area and how badly your tax assessor is motivated to collect higher taxes, your property taxes could be raised significantly. The homeowners most taken by surprise by new assessments are the ones who have lived in their new homes less than a year. When new homeowners close on their new homes, lenders require that they pay the current property taxes to the end of the year.
Most new homeowners expect to be taxed at that same rate the following year.
What they don't realize is that this low, favorable rate is based on what the previous home owner paid in taxes, based on what they paid for the home and how the market changed while they owned the home. What happens now is that new homeowners will pay a new rate - a rate established by the purchase price they paid on their new home and comparable prices paid for other homes in the neighborhood. This new rate can be assessed hundreds or thousands of dollars higher than the previous owner paid. Taxing authorities tax as closely as possible to current market value. So if you've already received that uncomfortably large property tax bill, I've got some good news for you.