I knew this was coming.
When we did our Massive Home Renovation project in 2010, we knew it would end up raising our taxes. How could it not? We essentially sheared the roof off of our existing house and slapped on a whole ‘nother floor. The tax people were probably driving by in their green visors, clicking the keys on their calculators, whispering “ohhhh yeah. We’re gonna get something GOOD out of this.”
Assholes.
Full offense meant to anyone involved in any way with the assessment of my property taxes, by the way.
That’s right.
We finished the bulk of the construction in July 2010 and put off final inspection while loose ends were being tied up and taken care of. We finally ended up getting the final inspection done after we got a nastygram from the town, all “pls to let us inspect or you will have to pay $$ just because we said so” and then we braced ourselves for the new taxes.
Nothing happened.
We refinanced the thing, to take advantage of crazy-good rates and a shitty market environment (the house appraised at nearly what we paid for it, despite its nearly doubling in size) and waited for the new tax rate to hit us.
Nothing happened.
Until, RIGHT BEFORE THE FUCKING HOLIDAYS, we got slammed with the new tax rate. That payment is all bundled into our mortgage payment (P&I, taxes, etc), and when the new payment amount decided to be $800 more than we’d previously been paying, I had a heart attack, died, came back to life, and ate half of a carrot cake.
This is how I cope.
Our taxes MORE THAN DOUBLED. We went from paying just under $6K to just over $12K and THIS IS NOT FUCKING FUNNY, UNIVERSE.
We spent the morning digging around on the internet for comps and recent sale prices of houses for sale in our ‘hood. The news is slightly encouraging, but it could just be that we are on the front line of the town decided to jack up EVERYONE’S taxes. I do not want to be in that club.
Thus, we are going to appeal. Being an adult sucks hairy donkey shitballs sometimes.
HOLY SHIT! $12K!! Taxes are quite high around here ($7K+) for a normal, middle-class house, so it’s an issue close to my heart. We don’t pay that much, thank god, as we live in a barn which apparently doesn’t count as a house…or something.
I hope the appeal is successful, because that shit is crazy.
Hm. Maybe if I buy a goat or something, we can get the house reclassified as a barn!