As I’ve said, I think EVERY LAND OWNER should file a tax appeal this year. We’re in a downward trending market that hasn’t hit bottom yet and there are plenty of sold comps out there (most likely some are similar to your parcel) that may justify a lower value than the Assessor has put on your vacant land.  On the 2011 Notice of Value you recently received you’ll see the Appeal Deadline Date. This is the drop dead, last date they will accept your appeal so note it carefully and DON’T MISS IT.

Start by going to the Assessors website at www.asr.pima.gov. Click on the button marked, ” Appeal Process” on the right of the screen. On the next screen click on ” Petition”. On the next screen click on ” Download Appeal Forms Here”. On the next screen click on ” Petition for Review of Real Property Valuation”.  That should get you to the 3 page downloadable form that you’ll need to begin.

The first line to be filled out is in the upper left hand corner. Remember you’re filing an Appeal to the 2011 tax year and that is the year to be entered.Items 1-6 are self explanatory and need no comment. In item #7 check the Market  Sales Approach box as this will be the basis for appealing the value of your land. And here is the most important part of the form; finding good comps that are close to your parcel in location, size, characteristic and most importantly have recently SOLD for a low price and/or already have been given a  low Full Cash Value by the Assessor. You can easily look up a parcel’s FCV on The Assessor’s website by entering the parcel ID in the Quick Search area at the upper right.  Active listings with low asking prices don’t mean anything to the Assessor. They will only use sold parcels in considering your appeal.The 2 best places to find these comps are at www.tarmls.com and www.zillow.com. You might also try some of the foreclosure related sites like www.realtytrac.com. or even the Assessor’s site where you can search your surrounding area by similar tax codes.  In item #9 you are asked to give your opinion of your property’s value. Be very aggressive here based on the comps you’ve found. The Assessor will never assign your property a value lower than what your estimate is.  Also, the Assessor will likely settle on a value somewhere between their value and yours.

Good luck and get started!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 8:01 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.