Bless Me Father For I Have Sinned

Geez, Danno, if you really want me to come out and help you figure out your walnut, all you have to do is invite me. :lol:

BK, is the new home in the Charlotte Valley School District?


zap

I'd check on that. Most towns now go on market value and there is no better estimate than the closing that just happened. All of the towns here watch the closings. Funny thing though, they only automatically raise, you have to fight if you paid less than the assessment. I'm waiting for the day the towns inside the blue line go to the 3%+ norm. NY really needs to get a handle on property taxes.

That's when you see contracts for "10,000 plus cash in hand." being submitted to the courthouse, but different contracts in the hands of the seller and buyers. I'm no lawyer, so these things are beyond me, but from looking at abstracts on historic properties, that seems to be quite common. Probably only works for cash sales, not ones with bank loans because of their requirements.

Sad, but the silver lining is you won't die of termites.

For 150k here in Central Maine you could get a nice 2,000sq ft house with 10+ acres and a 2 or 3 bay garage.

LOL, now see? TFF

Anyway . . . From a purely theoretical standpoint, 'welcome stranger' is illegal here in NY. But very difficult to prove. If you think you have it figured out, you may want to read this http://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/orpts/legal_opinions/v10/60.htm

My recommendation is to go talk to the Assessor. Make sure that the ONLY exemption for the current owner is the STaR exemption. The amount you gave was for the basic, not the enhanced. Find out about anticipated future 'pops' in expenditures. School need a new building? County building a new jail?

Also, take a look at the LEVY INCREASE for the past 7 years for the Town, the County, and the School. If by some chance the house is in an incorporated Village, look at those too. Do NOT look at the tax rate increase/decrease. Especially if the Town is keeping Assessments up to date, any attempts at an annual rate comparison will be meaningless.

While I agree with SAW that NY taxes suck, in 98% of cases is it NOT because of the market value of the property nor the Assessment. We simply spend way more money per student, per mile of road, and per Welfare recipient than any other state.

Unsustainable, is, I think, the word that fits here.

And with that green hue to his skin, he's half way to a Frankenstein Halloween costume.

Unfortunately, it probably only colored his lungs and maybe liver.

No matter what you are assessed, you can still go to the board of review. For example, we put up a barn last year and it cost $5,600 but were assessed for a value of $11,000. Crazy! So I just went to the board of review and took along paperwork and pictures and got the assessment back to where it should have been. No charge.

"Why did you raise my assessment from $99K to $150K"
"Because that is what you paid for it"
"But that raised my tax bill by $1500 compared to what the previous owner was paying"
"Yep. Next please"

I dunno, we paid $54K for our house and land 3 years ago and it was appraised at $75K but the town only assesses it as $29K. So needless to say, our taxes are low, something like $400/yr or so if I recall correctly - it's rolled into our mortgage so I don't remember the exact figure.

I highly doubt that would happen here. A lot of people get into trouble when they buy a house because they don't know it is coming. The tax bill on the last house I sold went up 4 grand when I sold it.

Don't mean to get off in the weeds here BK, just be careful when you are shopping not to assume that what the seller is paying in taxes is what you are going to pay. It can make a big difference in your monthly cash flow.

In MD now (or at least in my county) sellers have to estimate what the taxes will be based on the selling price, not based on what they currently pay. The housing bubble and the state restriction on year-year increases (which doesn't apply when it changes hands) meant that there was (and still is) often a large mismatch between what a seller was paying vs. what the new buyer would pay.

It should be noted that for the first year we did pay more than what the previous owner was paying due to Homesteaders Exemption not kicking in till after 1 year of ownership.

Actually quite simple in NY

Determine market value on July 1 of preceeding year.

Multiply that by:

1)Equalization rate
2)RAR (residential portion of equalization rate)
3)Uniform percent of value

In places where properties have been reappraised less than 40 years ago, all three numbers above will be similar. The result of this multiplication is about where you should be assessed. If this number is substantially higher than the assessment currently is of the house you are thinking of buying, that may be why the taxes are advertised as low on this house.


And SAW? maybe you need better representation ;-) Let me know.

Jimbo

I have a rule about letting guys named "Jimbo" represent me. Please tell me your business cards say "James" ,lol.

LOL Danno, and Professional Assessor too. But I don't work outside NY so yer on your own Dude

Heck, I might need you to represent me... and I don't care if your name is "Jumbo", as long as I know what my taxes will really be. ;-)

BTW the taxes weren't advertised as being low, just about 30-50% lower than most similarly priced/sized homes we've looked at.

Hey mods... let's move this over to the Nook, eh? I'd hate to have to start this discussion up all over again with a new thread, but it never really was a firewood-related topic in the first place.

BK - Can you go as far as say Wells or NorthCreek? Or is that too far of a drive?

Oh, yeah I forgot what we were talking about.

I can't say I've never burned PT, but I'm not sure that having the chemicals leach into the kids water supply is any better than putting it in their lungs through your wood fire. Many here will deny this, but. . . inhalants from cigarettes contain worse chemicals than burning up some PT near you. Unless its a PTCruiser.

Just sayin'

Well, I was dizzy already. Now I feel kinda normal. %-P