Long Beach Real Estate-Long Beach Condos

Property Tax Relief for Long Beach and Los Angeles County Homeowners?

Not Without An Appraisal

The Los Angeles County assessor's office on Monday announced completion of their automatic "decline-in-value" reassessments that reviewed 473,000 homes purchased between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2008. This review resulted in 330,000 county residences qualifying for automatic reductions in their October 2009 tax bill.

Homeowners with qualifying properties will be notified of the results in writing by June 30. Those who were not reviewed can file for free with the Assessor's Office until December 31.

According to the assessor, the average reduction in assessed values for single-family residences was $126,000, for an average tax savings of $1,400 per year. Condos saw averaged reductions of $96,000, for savings of about $1,100 per year.

Just how generous the savings will be on an individual basis is hard to say. Presumably, homeowners that purchased between 2005 - 2007 will see the bulk of the savings, while others may not see as large a reduction. But with budgets on the brink throughout the State, should anyone should expect assessor largesse?

Not without your own appraisal.

Two reasons:

1. The assessor's automatic valuation used market data in 2008-pre January 1 2009 cut-off.
2. Homeowners applying for review can submit their own appraisal with sales data through March 31, 2009.  

If you've been watching the news, you know prices continued sliding into this year. So homeowners accepting their auto-assessment might not be maximizing the savings they otherwise could see.

In two recent tax-reduction cases, the homeowners handed me their reduced-assessment notices sent to them by the assessor. Both assessments were --- get this --- high by about $150,000. (Which explains why they called me to begin with.) If either case reflects at all the data the assessor's using to calculate 2009 taxes, you want to get a second opinion.

To know if you property was reviewed, click here. If your property was not reviewed, or you didn't qualify even though you bought your home between June 30, 2003 and July 1, 2008, download a copy of the Decline-in-Value Reassessment Application then call for us a consultation-it's free.

PS. You want to get your options out of the way quickly, the deadline to file an appeal with the Assessment Appeals Board is November 30.

Also see: LA Times: Property tax relief coming for more than 330,000 L.A. County homeowners

Read Also:

Property Tax Reassessments in Long Beach & Southern California

Laurie Manny Long Beach Realtor® (562) 212-5420 244 Redondo Avenue Belmont Heights Long Beach, California 90803 Buyers/Sellers/Investors Homes Condos Income Properties 1031 Exchanges