pemeliza, your reciept of a supplemental bill nine months after purchase is well within the time frame for receiving a supplemental bill from a county assessor. As you know, the tax collected from you in escrow was reflective of your portion of the previous owners bill. You probably thought you were due a refund instead of receiving a supplemental bill because you pd. LESS for the property than the prev. owner’s assessment. Hopefully, there is enough in your “overpayment” to cover the supplemental bill.
CA assessors not only have the right to add 2% per year onto a non-exempted homeowner’s property tax bill pursuant to Prop 13, they have the right to assess the property by sq. ft. using the sales comps of the last six months from the area it is located in. (Co. assessors actually haven’t been routinely increasing tax bills by 2% in the last two years of those properties which were purchased since about 2004, but voluntarily decreasing them to avoid more assessment appeal applicants.)
Make sure when you are faxing the SD ARCC appraiser sales comps that you keep your cover sheet and fax confirmation sheet or e-mails as Econprof posted. Even though the comps you provided were “open market at arms length,” they are “distress” sales. If that is all that sold around there with similar sq. footage to your property, then the assessor will have to accept them. Are there any “non-distress” comparable sales to your property which took place in the last six months that the appraiser may want to use? If so, find out what they are, now.
Even if you can get the assessor to agree to assess your property for FY 10/11 at it’s REO price + 2%, once the rest of the REOs “shake out” in your area of 92103 and non-distress sales begin being routinely conducted once more, the assessor will have the right to increase your assessment for the next tax year to the market-rate purchased comparable properties.
Did the people you know that “scammed the system” buy an REO in Mission Hills, Pt. Loma or other similarly-situated coveted coastal area, such as you did?? If they purchased in areas with high or very high numbers of foreclosures and REO’s, then the assessor knows they cannot recover taxes from a “market-rate assessment” from these properties for at least several years. They agreed to the supplemental refund on these buyers because they are just trying to save themselves and the Clerk of the Board work by reducing the amount of assessment-appeal applicants in their already two-year long overcrowded pipeline.
If the appraiser doesn’t satisfy you informally within 30-45 days, you will have to pay the supp. bill and immed. file an assessment appeal, to get yourself in the pipeline. You will then receive a postcard within about a month telling you where your numbered position is in the pipeline.
pemeliza, I know the supp. bill came as a shock but just be grateful you got a good deal in a coveted area. I don’t believe you’ll be sorry for your purchase down the line, as so many buyers are now.
