Looking to reduce your property taxes?
How about applying for a reassessment?


Background:
If you purchased real property in California at the height of the housing boom, you may be able to receive a temporary reduction in assessed value and therefore, a reduction in the property taxes you must pay. If your property has fallen below it´s assessed value and you wish to apply for this reduction, you may do so with zero cost by filing a simple application ("Application for Review of Assessment") with the San Diego County Tax Assessor's office. The application is available on-line @ www.sdarcc.com or by calling the Assessor's office @ 858-505-6262. You must do this by May 30th of each year.

So what´s the impact in terms of dollars saved? The process is not that hard or time consuming but the savings can be substantial. I will give you an example. Let´s say you purchased a single family detached home in March 2005 and you paid what was then the county´s median price which was $560,000. This home´s original annual property tax bill would have been approximately $6,160. Now, if this same home has followed exactly what the county´s median price has done and you can substantiate the value, the value has decreased to $440,000 and the property taxes would be a lot less for a savings of approximately $1320.

The assessor´s office will review the submission and then notify you of the results each year by early July. If the assessed value is reduced, you will see the change reflected on your the following year's tax bill which should come in the mail in the early fall. The caveat is that any reduction is temporary in nature as the assessor will review the value annually so that when the value increases, the assessed value will increase and of course, a property tax increase will follow. But, the assessed value will not increase beyond the original assessed value.

If property owners disagree with the assessor's value, they may file a formal assessment appeal not later than November 30th.
Should you like to view a short video on the process:
I was fortunate to be interviewed on this subject by KFMB TV, the local San Diego CBS affiliate, recently and the video can be viewed below.