Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Beginning the first week in July, annual the 2011-12 assessed value for all properties may be found on the Assessor’s Parcel Viewer. Parcel Viewer is updated twice each year in early July and mid-September. If an assessed value is changed after mid-September, the new assessed value won’t appear on Parcel Viewer until the following July.
The 2011-12 review and assessment appeal periods ended November 30, 2011.
The 2012-13 review period begins after July 2, 2012 and ends November 30, 2012.
The 2012-13 assessment appeal filing period begins July 2, 2012 and end November 30, 2012.
Applications for both processes are accepted during their respective filing periods only.
A review is an informal process conducted within the Assessor’s Office. An appraiser will review your application and the appraisal of your property, and then determine if the value should be changed. Our office will then notify you of our findings. There is no charge for this service.
Filing an Application for Changed Assessment with the Assessment Appeals Board initiates a formal process involving the taxpayer, the Assessor’s Office and the Assessment Appeals Board. A non-refundable $30 appeal filing fee is charged when filing your application. The appeal process can take up to 2 years to complete. This filing may result in a hearing before the Appeals Board where you and Assessor’s staff present information supporting your respective opinions of value. The Appeals Board will then establish the assessed value based on the evidence presented. The Assessor and the applicant may choose to resolve the dispute informally prior to the hearing, if an agreement can be reached. The 2011-12 Assessment Appeal filing period for main roll bills closed November 30, 2011.
The drop in real estate values has significantly increased our workload while our staffing has been reduced. As a result, reviews can take several months or longer to complete. If the Assessor’s review is completed after November 30 and you disagree with the outcome of that review, you would have no further right to appeal unless you had already filed a separate Application for Changed Assessment with the Appeals Board by November 30, 2011.
The only information we can provide is that we have received it. When completed, we will notify you.
Yes. Once your review has been processed, you will be contacted by mail or by Assessor’s staff and advised as to what, if any, value reduction will be made to your assessed value. If the Assessor’s Office determines a reduction is appropriate, then an assessment roll correction will be processed.
The Assessor’s Office will process your informal review. If you’ve also filed an appeal and are not satisfied with the review results, you’ll have the opportunity to present your findings at an appeal hearing scheduled at a later date. The appeal process can take up to 2 years to complete. If you did not file both a review and appeal, you received the Assessor’s review results after the appeal filing deadline, November 30, 2011, and you disagree with the review results, you will have no further right to appeal.
A statewide ballot proposition numbered “Prop 8” passed in November 1978. It amended Prop 13 to recognize declines in value for property tax purposes. The term “Prop 8” has been commonly used by Assessors to refer to these reductions ever since.
By law, the Assessor must annually enroll either a property's Prop 13 value (factored for inflation by no more than 2% annually), or its current market value on the lien date (January 1), whichever is less. When a property’s current market value falls below the Prop 13 value, that lower value is commonly referred to as a "Prop 8 value." Prop 8 reductions are temporary and can change up or down by more than 2% per year. When the Assessor discovers that market value is higher than the Prop 13 factored value, the Assessor must reinstate the lower Prop 13 factored value.
Not all properties qualify for a Prop 8 reduction. Even though a property may have suffered a decline in market value it can still have an assessed value for property tax purposes that is less than its market value as of January 1. If it does, it is not reduced.
Further, for those properties whose assessed values are below their January 1 market values, the assessed values may increase up to 2% over last year’s values, consistent with the provisions of Proposition 13 (Prop 13).
Your assessed value is adjusted based on the original sale price of your property, as is your neighbor’s. If you have differing acquisition values that reflect different dates of purchase and/or differing upgrades and options within the house itself, or different location influences (such as traffic or a view) your current assessed value will reflect those differences as it did when the property was originally purchased. The assessed value of your neighbor’s property is not considered a comparable and cannot be used in the appraisal process. Only open market sales that occurred before March 31 (no more than 90 days after the January 1 lien date) can be used to review your value.
Yes. You must pay the original bill timely to avoid penalties, pending the outcome of the review or appeal.
Prop 8 reductions are temporary as mandated by state law.
No. Once you have been granted a reduction under Prop 8, your assessed value will be automatically reviewed by our office each year until the market improves and your Prop 13 assessed value is restored. While assessed under Prop 8, you should check your assessed value on Parcel Viewer each July to assure you agree with the value enrolled based on comparable sales in your neighborhood. If you disagree with the assessed value, you may file a review and/or appeal.
Increases to a Prop 8 assessment are not subject to the 2% increase limitation as are Prop 13 values. A Prop 8 value may be increased or decreased, depending on market activity in your neighborhood. Once the real estate market begins to recover, assessed values will be increased until they are restored to their Prop 13 factored base year values. At no point can the value be increased above your factored Prop 13 value.
All offices involved in the property tax process (Assessor, Auditor-Controller and Tax Collector) are experiencing a historically large volume of these reductions. When the Assessor’s Office determines a reduction in assessed value is appropriate, a roll change is processed and certified to the Auditor-Controller, typically within 15 business days. The Auditor-Controller will issue a corrected tax bill within 20 business days and deliver it to the Tax Collector for further processing. If a refund of paid money from the original bill is required, it is normally issued within 60 business days after the corrected tax bill has been calculated. You should anticipate the assessment changes will take up to the full 95 business days to be processed.
Each year in August the Tax Collector receives lists of parcel numbers from mortgage companies and taxing service agencies requesting the annual secured property tax bill information. The Tax Collector provides them with the tax bill information, including the current year assessed values, in mid-October only. Impound accounts are normally adjusted by lenders sometime after they receive this information. Some agencies may do impound account adjustments earlier in the year if their policies allow for it. Contact your loan servicing agency directly to determine their impound account policies, not the Assessor.
If your assessed value is changed and a replacement bill issued, the replacement bill will be sent directly to the property owner. The property owner is responsible for forwarding a corrected bill to the lender.
If your assessed value is changed and the original bill was paid by your lender, the resulting refund will be sent by the Auditor-Controller’s Office to your lender who paid the original tax bill on your behalf.
Under Prop 8, your annual tax bill mailed in mid-October is based on the market as of January 1st, ten months earlier. If January 1st market values stayed flat in your area, we reenrolled your 2010-11 Prop 8 assessed value for the 2011-12 year.
One component of the tax bill amount is based on the assessed value of the property. A second component of the tax bill amount is direct levies, benefit assessments, or delinquent utilities which are not based on the value of the property and can vary year to year. Direct levies, benefit assessments and delinquent utilities are placed on the bill by individual agencies that administer that program. Their telephone contact numbers are listed on the property tax bill. All questions about changes in levies should be directed to the specific levying agency, not the Assessor’s Office.
By law, properties purchased since January 1, 2011 will be reassessed for the 2012-13 tax year beginning July 1, 2012. This typically occurs prior to June 30, 2012. Annual tax bills based on the reassessed values are issued in October 2012.
Your purchase will also result in the issuance of a supplemental assessment during the 2011-12 fiscal year once your sale is appraised. If the value is determined to be lower, a supplemental refund reflecting the reduction in value for your period of ownership will be issued upon full payment of the 2011-12 annual property tax bill.
You may contact our Prop 8 Customer Service staff at (916) 875-0455, visit our office at 3701 Power Inn Road, Suite 3000 Sacramento, CA 95826-4329, or contact us by e-mail us at assessor@saccounty.net
