My home has been losing value in the past couple years, but my assessment is higher than what I can sell it for now, what gives?
The assessed value, or Value in Use, is indeed based on market values, but with a two year lag time based on state law. 2008 pay 2009 values are based on sales data collected in 2006 and 2007, and time adjusted to January 1 2007, so if the value of your real property has fallen since then, it will seem high. Keep in mind though that your true tax value determines what your share of the total property taxes for that year, it is likely that your neighbors will be "off" by the same percentage, thus each person's portion remains proportionately the same. Please note also that even if you purchased your home exactly on the assessment date, the Value In Use will not necessarily match your purchase price exactly. Value In Use is based on all of the sales in the time period, averaged with outliers filtered out. Your home may be one of these outliers if the difference is more than 10% off (Plus or minus) from your purchase price. Of course it is also possible that there is an error on our part. Your property record card is available for viewing if you believe this to be the case.
This question: has actually been asked before we answered it, about the proposed annexation of some unincorporated sections of St. John Township, and how taxes will change for those affected.
For a home assessed at $200,000, with homestead and Mortgage exemptions, the net assessed value would be $152,000. In Unincorporated St. John Township the tax bill for 2006/ pay 2007 would have been $2,118.72, in Dyer the tax bill would have been $2,927.82 and in St. John $2,740.10
As required by Indiana statutes, all properties in the State have gone through a process called "Trending", The process requires an analysis of all valid sales that occurred during the years 2004 and 2005 and adjusting individual neighborhoods to reflect those "trends" in value. From this year to 2010, this will be an annual adjustment. The previous values were based on a January 1, 1999 valuation date and the current valuation date is January 1, 2005.
We know that questions will be asked, so perhaps the following answers will cover them.
What happened on my tax bill? You said a 30% change in assessment should not change my bill!
Unfortunately that was based on spending remaining stable, it hasn't. As shown in this article, and this one, the spending for Lake Central Schools jumped just under 30%. Another factor was a decrease in state PTRC as well as a nearly 50% drop in homestead credits. The actual bills have not yet been published, but we have come up with an excel spreadsheet that should help you figure out what they will be. (Note: if you do not have Microsoft Excel installed on your system, the file should also open in OpenOffice.org, released under the Gnu Lesser General Public Liscense, iWork under MacOSX should work as well. Google Docs also seems to work.) Click >>HERE<< to download the excel file. In Internet Explorer, the easiest bet may be to right cick and "save as" to save a copy of it. There is a problem, where you may be asked for a username password combination to open the file with a single leftclick, the simple work around is to click "cancel" on the authentication window and you will get the file. The web guy is trying to trace down the cause for this. What is a “neighborhood” and how does that affect my assessment?Neighborhoods are a collection of similarly constructed residences in terms of quality, style (single family, townhomes, etc) that serve essentially the same market. Most often, it also comprises the same geographical area. The sales in each neighborhood determine the trending factor to be applied to every property in that neighborhood.
Will this new assessment raise my taxes?Right now, it's impossible to accurately answer until the State calculates the tax rates. If spending stayed the same and every property increased the same percentage, then taxes would remain the same. The amount of total taxes raised stays the same regardless of increases in assessments. What does change is how the burden is distributed between individual taxpayers and classes of taxpayers (business vs. residential). We know that there will be a shift from business to residential due to the elimination of inventories from the tax base; this will be partially offset by a $10,000 increase in the Homestead deduction. The key for individuals is whether the increase is above or below the average, which is projected to be about 30%.
If I purchased my home for less than my assessment, will that reduce my assessment?Not necessarily!! The first step is to time-adjust the sale to January 1, 20xx (Two years previous to pay year) at the rate of 5% per annum (the average annual increase). Even then, a reduction might not be justified. Trending is a Mass Assessment technique that must meet certain statistical standards and is not a specific parcel appraisal. The applied Neighborhood Factor is derived from the Median of the sales, which means that 50% of all sales are above the Median and 50% are below; for the purpose of establishing assessed value, the standard is that the +/- variations cannot exceed 10% of the Median, so if your property falls within this range, it satisfies assessment standards and is a valid assessment. Indiana statutes specifically provide that assessed value for taxation purposes does not mean market value.
Why would my value increase differ from my next door neighbor?In most cases, they will increase the same percentage... but not always. While many reasons exist, there was most likely an error in the previous assessment. We changed over 1,000 parcels that were simply in the wrong neighborhood and thousands more that had obvious errors in square footage, types of garages, etc.
How do I appeal if I still think it's wrong?No specific format is required, but there is a form that we use
here (you need a pdf viewer such as
Adobe Reader); or, you can simply come into our office and get a copy of your Property Record Card and fill in a form at that time. Our staff will review the PRC with you. Despite our efforts to clean up what Cole-Layer-Trumble left behind, errors still exist.
Important: Despite what the form states, a law was passed this year (House Enrolled Act 287-2007) that extends the time to appeal from 45 days after the Notice of Assessment to 45 days after the Tax statement is provided. If your taxes are paid through an Escrow account, you will not receive a tax bill.
Please contact us at (219) 365-2777 or using
this page, if you should have additional questions.
Hank Adams,
St. John Township Assessor