When to Hire a Property Tax Attorney?

You might think that hiring a property tax attorney is only for people who are rich, but property tax attorneys can be helpful to anyone who is getting over-charged on their property taxes.

What Does a Tax Attorney Do?

As the title suggests, a property tax attorney ensures that taxes imposed on the owners of residential and commercial real estate properties are fair with respect to similar properties in your neighborhood or the income they produce. They help you identify applicable property tax exemptions and help you file for a property tax refund if you are entitled to one. A property tax attorney knows how he or she can help you save money on property taxes at any point of your homeownership experience, thus helping you keep your monthly mortgage expenses down so that you can spend more on your family and not the government.

Why Hire a Property Tax Attorney?

Two of the most important aspects of any property tax appeal are timing and the overall knowledge of the appeal process. Even if you know how to appeal your property taxes and what documents you need to submit, the unpredictability of the whole process of dealing with overworked staff and limitations set by the county on when appeals can be filed may still prevent you from filing a successful appeal.

When dealing with the county, you must always keep in mind that you are dealing with a bureaucratic organization that is far from perfect, and you have to be persistent, diligent, and resourceful every step of the way. If you do not have the time to spend going over real estate and assessment data of other properties in their neighborhood, preparing appeal documentation, babysitting your appeal, dealing with the county, and living by the appeal schedule, you need someone who can do it all for you. This when a property tax attorney becomes crucial to your success and you need to start thinking about hiring one.

When to hire a Property Tax Attorney/Representative?

This is one of the questions that most homeowners get wrong when thinking about property taxes. It is often not because we don’t want to do it, but rather because we don’t like to think about property taxes and try to push the decision to another day, kicking the can down the road. Nevertheless, procrastination catches up with us once the county releases a new property tax bill, and we suddenly feel that we cannot take it anymore and need to hire someone fast to help us reduce the bill as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, once the bill is out it is usually impossible to do anything about it, since appeal time for the tax year associated with the bill has already passed. In all counties, you pay your tax bills one year in a rear, meaning that in 2020, you pay taxes for 2019. Since this is the case, the time to appeal 2019 has already passed and you can only appeal your 2020 property taxes, payable in 2021.

It is also important to remember that since you are usually only given one month out of the year to appeal your property taxes, it is very possible that once your tax bill comes out, the window of opportunity to appeal your property taxes may have passed. As such, it is our advice that you hire a property tax attorney at the start of the year to ensure that your property tax appeal is filed on time and the appeal opportunity is not wasted. If possible, property taxes should be appealed every year to ensure your property taxes stay low and fair each year. The worst thing that can happen in every appeal is that county rejects your appeal and you don’t realize a property tax reduction for a given year; your property taxes will never go up as part of any unsuccessful appeal.

Choose a Lawyer Based on Wisdom, Not Promises

When hiring an attorney or a tax representative, chose someone who is knowledgeable, honest, transparent in their research, and responsive. You should feel comfortable that, based on the information that the attorney shared with you, they would be able to make a compelling case to the county to lower your property taxes.  If you are being over-charged for real estate property taxes, hiring a real estate property tax lawyer is the most cost-effective and time-efficient solution. Nevertheless, when it comes to property taxes, no one can give you a 100% guarantee that your appeal will be successful.