In the ongoing housing slump, I frequently receive e-mails from constituents who are concerned that the market value of their home is less than its assessed value for property tax purposes. The question all of these homeowners ask is the same: What can they do about it?
The answer: File a Georgia property tax return.
If you believe that the sale prices of comparable homes in your neighborhood have fallen to the point that the county now uses a higher value to calculate your property taxes than you could get if you put your home on the market, Georgia law allows you to tell the DeKalb County tax assessors what the current fair market value of your property is. This will force the assessors to review your property assessment. It is not necessary to wait for your property to be reassessed.
To do so, you will need to file a Form PT-50R (click for a fill-and-print PDF version; Adobe Reader is required) so that it is received no later than March 1 at the following address:
DeKalb County Property Appraisal Department
120 West Trinity Place, Room 208
Decatur, GA 30030
To fill out the form, you will need certain information about your property that can be found in DeKalb’s property tax records. Click here to search the property tax records for your street address.
For further information, click here for an AJC article and here for a Georgia Department of Revenue web page about property tax returns.
In case you need to contact them directly, the telephone number for the DeKalb County Property Appraisal Department is (404) 371-0841.
Remember, March 1 is the deadline to use this process to challenge your property assessment if you believe your assessment is “upside down” compared to the fair market value of your home.
[...] PT-50R form and most of the other information mentioned in the video can be found in this article about challenging your assessment (click for link) that I published last week. Here is a link to zillow.com, which wasn’t mentioned [...]
[...] common thread is that, if you filed a Form PT-50R Georgia Real Property Tax Return (click for an article that I previously wrote on how to file this form), the tax assessors included [...]