Property Tax issues

Indiana is going through a property tax crisis this year. Inaction at the state level led to expiration of certain business taxes, with no reduction in state and local government spending. The result was that the tax burden shifted entirely to homeowners, with some personal residence property tax bills going up hundreds of percent. The property taxes on our home have gone up almost 500% since our first full year in the house, nine years ago.

So for the last month we have gone through the assessment appeal process. We hired a professional appraisor who put together a very detailed 27-page report. His conclusion was that the county overvalued our house by 35% or so. Apparently the county thought we had expansive, flowing curved marble staircases and gold-plated bidets in all the bathrooms, or who knows that they were assuming.

We submitted the report, and we attended the appeal hearing. In the end, they knocked down the assessed value by about 18%. It doesn't appear they took much of the appraisors report into direct account, they just lowered a multiplier they use to assign value.

I would be interested in hearing from others how they plan improvements and maintenance with property tax valuation in mind. We want to put money into the house, but not if it is going to cost us thousands in additional property taxes.

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tax property tax assessment appraisal