Soaring Property Taxes Forcing Homeowners to Extremes

Blog February 21, 2013 By Admin
Back

A property tax super-storm hitting Long Island is causing local homeowners to consider taking drastic measures to reduce their tax bills.

 

Hurricane Sandy area victims that didn’t take direct property damage are taking to the web in desperation, seeking advice on how they can devalue their properties by rendering parts of their home unusable and ripping out previous home improvements or tearing down additions.

 

The hope is that this will enable them to have their homes reassessed at a lower value and have property tax bills reduced. It could certainly work though perhaps not fast enough for many, and with devastating long term financial repercussions.

 

In Nassau County the village of Freeport anticipates that a good portion of its 15,000 homeowners could qualify for property tax bill reductions, if they are proactive and actually seek the help of local Long Island property tax adjuster to file property tax grievances on their behalf.

 

Of course given that this could erase an estimated 5% or more of local tax revenues the government isn’t too happy about it. In fact Freeport’s mayor, Andrew Hardwick says “My thing is to encourage property owners to not seek reassessments”, out of a fear too many will be successful. Yet, you can bet he probably won’t be first in line to over pay.

 

They want you to rebuild fast in order to boost tax revenues. Sadly many that are rushing to comply are often doing so at an even lower standard, meaning less real value, but for higher taxes, and putting themselves more at risk for further damage.

 

Don’t devalue your property willfully. The chances are that even if you haven’t suffered direct storm damage that there are great arguments that the residual fallout has devalued your property and perhaps even the land it sits on.

 

You can get a break, lower your property tax bill and have more money in your pocket without going to these extremes and doing yourself more financial damage.