Seattle Bubble

Note from The Tim: The following is a guest post from Charlie Walsh, the Founder and CEO of ValueAppeal, a new startup based in Seattle. ValueAppeal is a simple online tool that homeowners can use to help them appeal their property tax assessments.

King County Property Tax Appeal Deadline Is Soon!

Each year counties around the country send out notices in the mail letting homeowners know what the new assessed value of their home is for property tax purposes. Unlike most counties around the country, King County doesn’t send out all of their assessment notices at the same time. Over the course of the summer, the King County Assessor sends out assessment notices for a different neighborhood each week. Homeowners have sixty (60) days from the postmark date on their mailing notice to file their appeal (a.k.a. Real Property Petition Form) with the King County Board of Equalization. That means each neighborhood’s appeal deadline is a little different.

When homeowners receive their notice in the mail that their property tax assessment has gone up above the market value of the home, the gut reaction is “there’s no way I could sell my house for that much.” That’s exactly what happened recently to the Thompson family in Seattle. They received a notice in the mail that their four bedroom, 3 bathroom home was assessed for over $675,000, way more than they could possibly sell it for on the open market.

Unfortunately, most homeowners leave it at that. They pay their bill grudgingly and try to forget about it. A lot of homeowners may not even realize how much they’re overpaying because their mortgage company pays the property taxes on their behalf and then adds it to their statement each month. Fortunately the Thompsons didn’t just accept their unfair assessment, they figured out the rules for filing and appeal and lowered their assessment by just over $110,000, saving them over $1,300 on their property tax bill.

The first thing the Thompson’s did correctly was to make sure they filed their Real Property Petition Form before the end of their 60 day appeal window. (The Real Property Petition Form is available on the King County Assessor’s website, or by calling 206-296-7300) All King County homeowners receive an assessment notice in the mail between April and September of each year. The mailings are intentionally staggered over the course of the summer and homeowners have 60 days from the date of their mailing notice to file a notice of intent to appeal their assessment. The Thompsons received their assessment notice in the mail on September 10th so they had to file their appeal by November 9th at the latest.

In their research, the Thompsons learned that in order to prove their case for a lower assessment to the Board of Equalization, they needed to present 3-5 comparables homes “comps” along with the Real Property Petition Form they downloaded from the assessor’s website. This meant finding nearby homes similar in square feet, lot size, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc, that sold for less than their home was assessed for. This was the Thompson’s first big hurdle; where were they going to get the comps?

Finding the correct comps is harder than you might think.

Many homeowners will start by typing their address into a service like Zillow to get a long list of about 40 comps and picking the ones that seem best at first glance. Unfortunately, this often leads to their comps being disqualified and their appeal case being unceremoniously thrown out.

Why? There are a number of reasons comps are disqualified during an appeal hearing. For starters, the King County Assessor evaluates your home’s value as of the January 1st assessment date each year by looking at comps that sold PRIOR to that assessment date. Therefore, in order to successfully appeal, the homeowner must also submit comps that sold PRIOR to the assessment date as well. Zillow’s data is constantly updated to attempt to determine a real time market value, so most of the comps you see displayed for your property sold AFTER January 1st, 2009 and would be disqualified by the assessor.

And that’s not all. Homeowners are not allowed to submit comps that sold as part of a foreclosure, short sale, inheritance or divorce transaction, donation to charity, or any other non arm’s length transaction. Yet all of these transactions are technically “sales” and show up in official records. Unfortunately if you look up comps on Zillow, many of these important details get lost.

As you can see there are some hurdles that homeowners have to deal with when appealing their property taxes. Finding the correct comps to use in a property tax appeal is difficult. Fortunately for the Thompsons, today there are online property tax appeal resources available to help homeowners select the correct comps that didn’t even exist as recently as 2008.

On August 27th, 2009 the King County Assessor mailed assessment notices for the following neighborhoods: Queen Anne, Western West Seattle, Rainier Beach, Broadview, Blue Ridge, and Shilshole. That means the sixty (60) day window for these neighborhoods closes on Monday October 26th, 2009. If you’re only a week or two late filing your Real Property Petition Form they’ll usually let it slide, but don’t push it. If you never received your assessment notice in the mail you can sign an affidavit saying you never received it and they’ll allow you to file your petition after the deadline.

Click below for the remaining upcoming appeal King County property tax appeal deadlines. [Read more →]