It’s that time of the year again. Spring has sprung. Every car bears a coat of yellow pollen. And the DeKalb County Board of Tax Assessors has sent out property assessment change notices.
Not everyone received a property assessment change this year. However, for those of us who have been reassessed, the increases are quite shocking. Several constituents have e-mailed me about their reassessment notices. Here’s an example: “I just received a notice from DeKalb County with a $70,000 property assessment increase!!! I filed the form to freeze the value last year and was told that it had been received. Was the law repealed? What happened? Please help ASAP!”
Evan and I received a $44,300 assessment increase this year, which is 15% of the assessed value of our home on Granger Drive.
The headlines tell a different story. “Atlanta home prices fall 4.8 percent” in 2007, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Atlanta home values drop sharply since last summer,” says Creative Loafing.
These artificial, unjustifiable assessment increases are the county government’s and school system’s way of increasing your property taxes without actually holding a public vote of the county commission or school board to increase your property taxes. They are back-door tax increases. Worse yet, it doesn’t matter how the real estate market is doing, which is outrageous.
The first step toward fighting back was passing the county property tax assessment freeze back in 2006, which freezes your property assessment for the purposes of calculating the county government’s portion of your property tax bill. I am proud to have actively supported this measure. Without my help in passing the property tax assessment freeze, it would not have happened. The property tax assessment freeze only affects the approximately 25% of property taxes that are levied for use by the county government, which explains why the county continues to increase property assessments year after year.
Another important thing you can do to fight back is to exercise your right to appeal your reassessment. That is the purpose of this message, to remind you about this right. You can find information on how to appeal your property assessment increase on the DeKalb County Property Appraisal Department’s website (click for link). Your letter of appeal must be postmarked no later than this Monday, May 12.
