Will you be among those losing your home due to property taxes in the next few months, or receiving a refund?
The deadline is approaching and many New Yorkers will lose their homes at tax lien sales in the next 8 weeks. At the same time Long Islanders are getting their property tax bills slashed thanks to the help of local property tax adjusters, and Nassau County is being forced to release hundreds of millions in tax refunds.
The NYC finance department advises that New York property owners only have until May 15th, 2014 to pay their debts or enter a payment agreement, after which lien sales will take place on May 16th, 2014.
Liens are levied against homeowners for nonpayment of water charges, property taxes and other items. Once liens are sold they accrue additional fees and interest which make it even more difficult to pay them. Eventually these homes get bought for pennies on the dollar. Great for real estate investors, not so great if it is your hard worked for home being gobbled up at a bargain basement price.
On March 26th, 2014 Gov. Cuomo clashed with Mayor Blasio telling him it was too late to restore rent subsidies to help homeless families, which makes it even more unappealing to be caught in a bind on property taxes.
It’s no secret that many Long Islanders and New Yorkers in general continue to receive wildly inaccurate and even predatory tax bills. Until February this year Nassau County even tried to get out of paying back overages due via refunds estimated at around $450 million. This effort was finally struck down by one of the State’s highest courts and hopefully streamlines the refunding of this cash into local homeowners’ pockets.
So appeal your high Long Island property taxes get your money, keep your money, and keep your home!