From Roy Whiteley, president of Marylanders For Fair Property Taxation:
We’re back for the seventh year with the introduction by Senator Barry Glassman’s annual effort to reform the archaic, biased, inequitable, non-uniform, subjective, unfair, and outdated property tax assessment procedures and assessment appeals system. This bill requires a task force to conduct studies and make evaluations and recommendations to improve the operation and conduct of the property tax assessment and appeals system. The task force will be staffed with select citizens having professional backgrounds and expertise conducive to conducting a review of the current assessment system, evaluate its effectiveness, study alternative methods of creating assessments which would result in fair, uniform, and equitable assessments commensurate with current market values, recommend and adopt positive reforms to the property tax assessment procedure and appeals process that will be beneficial to both the state and its taxpayers. See www.mlis.state.md.us. Fill in bill number SB 498 for full details.
Unfortunately, many of those that we elect fail to see, hear, or listen to us until we get in their face. That’s what we need to do now!!!! We need to fill the hearing room to make our presence known. NUMBERS COUNT!!!! WEAR RED!!!! We think that by design, these hearings often become “lengthy” and “shuffled” to the rear of the schedule resulting in many supporters leaving before a bill hearing is actually heard. We would suggest that you arrange car pools and be prepared to wait out the committee. We need numbers in the seats and good testimony to show your concern, interest, and support. You do not have to testify BUT for those who wish to testify — you must sign up in person at the hearing room at least one hour before the hearing. You should send a hard copy or email your testimony to Janie Ballard at Senator Barry Glassman’s office 320 Miller Senate Office Building, 11 Bladen Street, Annapolis, Maryland 21401 Phone (800) 492 7122 X3603 (jballard@senate.state.md.us or barry.glassman@senate.state.md.us) She will reproduce the necessary 35 copies for distribution to the committee and can register for you to testify if you let her know.
Contact the members of the Budget and Taxation Committee —- e-mail addresses are all in this format followed by @senate.state.md.us
edward.kasemeyer
nathaniel.mcfadden
david.brinkley
richard.colburn
ulysses.currie
james.degrange
george.edwards
verna.jones
nancy.king
richard.madaleno
roger.manno
douglas.peters
james.robey
Fill their mail boxes and let them know we want this bill passed from committee to the floor where it can be acted upon by ALL the legislators we elect— NOT JUST A SELECT FEW COMMITTEE MEMBERS!!!! ALSO, contact your respective senators and tell them to sign on to cosponsor and support this legislation.
Remember, Nothing Happens Unless We Make It Happen!!!!!
Roy Whiteley
The Maryland assessment system is probably the most modern and uniform system in the country. Go to Virginia, where assessments are done differently in each county. Fairfax is modern and up to date. Then go to a rural county in the southwest corner of the state. The county government votes on when they want to be reassessed. When they do decide to do that, they often hire a company from outside to do that. Sometimes sales are analyzed by a company in New Jersey that simply raises the assessments by a percentage without even coming to Virginia. Maryland has each county being reassessed every three years, with a third of each county being done each year. It is done by state assessors who look at the properties in each county and analyze the sales in each county. Each county uses the same data system, cama, or computer assisted mass appraisal. The state is currently updating the cama system so that headquarters in Baltimore will be able to keep more of an eye on what is being done in each county as it is being done. If there were differences from county to county in how cama was done (of course the bottom line for taxpayers is the value), now there will be less and less differences. This new system developed my Manatron is the most modern and up to date system in the world. It cant be any more integrated, any more updated, any more uniform or any more unbiased. If Mr Whitely is dissatisfied with his property value, in Maryland he also can go to the next level of appeal, the Ptaab board, which operates independently from the assessment office. After this level he can go to the Maryland Tax Court, which is also independent of the other two levels. All of this can be done without paying a fee or having an attorney. In Connecticut I believe you protest your assessment by going to court. Mr. Whitely appears to have personal biases in his opinions of the assessment process in Maryland. If anyone is “archaic, biased, inequitable, non uniform, subjective, unfair and outdated” it is himself and the senator whom he has influenced into submitting a bill without really checking out what is going on.
When it’s all said and done, it seems that you are telling us that we should be glad to have the clap instead of syphilis!
@Clay – You leave out that assessments do not include all transactions e.g., short sales and foreclosures, and that there are arbitrary decisions on valuations that defy logic.
And you have the audacity to say this system “is the most modern and up to date system in the world. It cant be any more integrated, any more updated, any more uniform or any more unbiased”. And I say how do you know?
Floyd The Barber
Yearly valuations and assessments would be the fairest way to do it, but of course people would complain if assessments went up instead of down. Due to the Homestead tax credit, most in place owners don’t really pay the full reassessed value when prices go up, but don’t get the full downward revision when values go down either. Still, moving away from a property tax assessment is archaic and cumbersome to do fairly as home prices don’t always reflect true value as distressed property right now dominates and other people do home renovations without proper permitting or just the assessor making biased assumptions on neighborhoods, areas and other automated valuation tools which have many statistical errors. Having served in position which was closely related to this process, I would have to say that the system is far from fair, equitable and also property tax credits have not been used properly as for years the state assumed that if you listed the home as a residence then the homestead tax credit was applied uniformly even when people owned multiple properties and listed each one of the as a residence.
Short sales and foreclosures shouldnt be used unless there is absolutely nothing else for a large area surrounding the property being assessed. Any appraiser will tell you that. They arent the best indication of value. Short sales are of course better than foreclosures. If a dwelling sells at foreclosure for 230,000 and your current assessment is 390,000, would you sell your house for 230? So taxpayers want foreclosures considered in their assessments for tax purposes but not for selling their home? That is what I am gathering. There are enough sales in Harford County to not have to use foreclosures. It isnt true that homeowners get the break from the Homestead Tax Credit when assessments go up but not when they go down. It allows them to get the cap that their county has set when the value goes up. For example if their home is assessed for 250k they may only be paying on 220k due to the cap. However, if the assessment goes down to 190k, it goes right down to 190k and stays there for three years. The cap is no longer in effect. So what do you mean they dont get the benefit when the value goes down? That is the benefit of the three year system. If the assessment goes up in the meantime they still stay at 190k. If the assessment goes down in the meantime the homeowner can appeal the value of 190k if it has dropped to 180k or whatever with an out of cycle appeal. Why would anyone want yearly assessments? If people do additions without a permit that is one of the jobs that assessors are there for. Making everything automated would create more unfairness. Some guy rebuilds and remodels his house totally and he pays the same tax as you do with the same house he had before remodeling because no one is there to pick up the additions? Is what Mr. Whitely wants fair? It is a personal attack because of how he feels he has been treated. He can go to the other levels of appeal if he wants as I pointed out above. If anyone has made a biased decision in the assessment office why doesnt he point that out to the next level of appeal and tell them how it was biased? If they left out low sales, show Ptaab the low sales to get the assessment lowered. The new Cama system being implemented allows all counties methods of cama to be overviewed by headquarters in Baltimore. Show me a jurisdiction with a more uniform way of doing assessments, especially a state. There is a lot of biased misinformation out there. And the bottom line is, it isnt going to change. The governor and the legislature arent going to start letting each county do their own assessments after creating a statewide system of the same methods in each county. They arent about to let people like Mr. Whitely decide what values should be in Harford County. As far as your statement on a homoeowner getting the homestead credit on more than one property owned in Maryland, even though they are supposed to only get the credit on the property that is their principal residence, that is exactly what a statewide system of assessment, methods, property owner names and addresses is there for. Clerks check that homeowners name in every county in the state to ensure the credit isnt being given somewhere else. It is 2011 folks, not 1928, which is around the time Mr. Whitely was born.
@Clay If you have 10 comparable transactions and 4 are short sales/foreclosures an appraiser should not consider them?
Yes. However with six good sales, two short sales in the range of the good sales and two foreclosures that are 150k when all the other sales in the neighborhood are 450 to 500k, how much weight should anyone put on the foreclosure sales? With enough good sales, they obviously dont get a lot of weight. It isnt appropriate for someone to come in to protest an assessment with just foreclosures.
@Clay Short sales and foreclosures are true representations of the market and should be in the calculus. It is supremely foolish and dishonest to leave true data out of the appraisal process.
So if the assessment office or an appraiser has six house sales in a subdivision that are all around 350-375k and two sales of similiar houses that are foreclosures of 155k and 160k how much weight do you want put on the two foreclosures to appraise a house there?
@Clay A transaction is a transaction so of course it has to be part of the equation to do otherwise is statistically incorrect.
If a foreclosure or short sale occurs and eventually sells again it gets added into the equation at that time. Markets and prices are decided by events.
You can’t dismiss data for a calculus because you don’t like what it does to the results.
Well Floyd, what you just said was that the foreclosures and short sales arent included unless they resell. So what are you trying to argue? Of course they are included if they resell, especially if the resale is a good sale. What I said what that they arent included unless there is nothing else to use. For your info, an appraiser considers them but doesnt use them if there are enough good sales. I believe the state rule with the assessment offices is to consider them but not to use them if there are enough good sales. So the question seems to be how large of an area does one have to have with no good sales before they can argue to the assessment office that the foreclosures in their area can be used, even though of course they wouldnt want to sell their home for that amount. Where in Harford can you go for a two story home, built 2002, 2000 square feet, average grade with an acre lot where you cant find some sales of similiar homes close enough to use? You know what the answer is? Probably nowhere. An appraiser is going to find something for the appraisal in Forest Hill if he has to go to Fallston. How often do you think any assessment office in Maryland will actually use foreclosures? It probably wont happen very often Floyd. If the foreclosure sales continue and continue with nothing else selling in that large of an area, and they arent 120k for homes previously selling for 400k, then yes, five foreclosures for 280 to 320k are probably what the houses are worth. No one is dismissing something because they dont like the results. Is your name Whitely? Have a good one.
@Clay – Now you are an idiot.
I am saying it is wrong to not use short sales/foreclosures in the calculation and my point is that the calculation will readjust if and when the short sale or foreclosure resells since you can’t count the same property twice.
Furthermore, the farther afield you have to search for properties to compare the less valid the appraisal, if you have a street or neighborhood with short sales/foreclosures and you leave them out your appraisal methodology is a fiction.
Clay the system is broken and not fair to property owners. 3 years waiting for your home to be reassessed is just plain too long. there are automated systems and individual appeal processes that can be applied to find equitable valuation of homes yearly. The appeal process itself should be handled through an independent agency that doesn’t represent the states interests or the homeowners interest, but equitable valuation on property. No homeowner should pay more than what his home is worth per assessed value. The point really is that the state and counties combined keep the rates and assessments high and the appeals process complex to keep homeowners from even looking to challenge the results.
Mr Floyd I have explained to you over and over that they shouldnt be left out but that an appraiser will go to another neighborhood and make a location adjustment if they are too far from what houses have been selling for in that neighborhood. If you are looking for an appraiser or the assessment office to make your assessment 140k when houses in your neighborhood have been selling for 450k it isnt going to happen. If they continue selling for 140k in arms lenght transactions or if all there is are foreclosures for a long period of time then yes. And Mr Frankly, I have explained about the appeal process and system in this state being more fair than anywhere in the country. If you cant read and understand what I have written above by now, chances are you never will because even though any system has flaws, you have an agenda based on bias and not the truth.
@Clay – You say “appraiser will go to another neighborhood and make a location adjustment if they are too far from what houses have been selling for in that neighborhood.” Certainly you don’t understand statistical analysis and methodology and if an appraiser has to look farther afield for comps to prove a higher assessment then that is a false and unfair appraisal.
While it may be your opinion, you simply do not have the facts to assert that Maryland appeals process is “more fair than anywhere in the country”. In fact I have owned a primary residence in five states and from my experience Maryland was no better and with one state you could simply call the county on a recent purchase with an obvious over assessment and get a reduction with a telephone call.
So Floyd, if your house was being taken by eminent domain would you want the forclosures, short sales and low values from people who sold quickly applied to your house? After all it would represent the quickly lowering fair market value!
Cdev – Buzz off and keep your non sequiturs to yourself.
Thank you for being the thought police. Perhaps you might answer the serious question!
Floyd I have told you again that no appraiser or assessor is going to do a statistical analysis including all the foreclosures in a neighborhood and use that for the obviously called for reduction in anything if there are enough arms length sales to use. You arent going to tell any assessment office or appraiser that they cant go five or six miles away for a comp. Appraisers do it and make location adjustments all the time. If all there are are foreclosures then yes. But how wide of an area are you insisting on for “only foreclosures” when there are good sales six miles away? You dont seem to want to answer that question. If you think that Maryland will ever have a system where all you have to do is to make a phone call and get an adjustment, you arent specifying any evidence that you did or did not provide in the phone conversation in the other state. Secondly, would you make the call if values had gone up in your neighborhood? I doubt it. Thirdly, this state already has such a system. You have the right to check “phone hearing” when you have a hearing with your assessment office. If you have that hearing and you present evidence of lower sales etc or the assessor looks at the sales even though you didnt present any evidence and sees that they have come down, especially in the event of an out of cycle hearing where you were last assessed two years ago, you are probably going to get a reduction. It happens all the time. Now what are you going to say? “Well they didnt do any such thing for me and were rude and inconsiderate?” Why havent you presented your evidence to Ptaab? If you did what was their result? Did you go to tax court? I think it is time for someone to stop being an old geezer and to grow up.
Went through this “modern and uniform” assessment some yrs ago. We had zero, zilch, NO Sales in our area for comparison in the study interval. Net result – the brainless, clueless yet modern system used the countywide average to hike our taxes!! Then the bottom dropped out of our market and it took many years for any readjustment. A fair, flat tax would remove all of this insanity (with the added benefit of removing layer upon layer of bureacracy!)
So Fed Up, what sales would an appraiser have used if you paid to have it appraised? They have to find something. Also you are wrong about the assessment system using a countywide average. There are sales every year and it isnt done that way. How could a dwelling in a high crime area near Rt 40 be compared to sales of dwellings in Fallston for 500k by using a countywide average? It isnt done. If the bottom dropped out of the market you had an opportunity for an out of cycle appeal before your next three year assessment came up, in each year. So if there were lower sales (I assume that is what the assessment office used for your readjustment), you didnt have to wait until that next three year notice to appeal and possibly get an adjustment. Is a flat property tax fair when you have a house worth 250k and someone pays the same tax with a house worth 650? I am not sure if you mean just flat property tax or flat tax on income or what. Thanks.
I found myself nodding my nogign all the way through.