Selling the Farm, having a hard time - where are my people?

[pluvinel]

@rockymouse

My husband just tried this. I had to be out of town, but I prepped him and had all the relevant materials in a folder, and had written out the contextual evidence out for the review board.

It, uh, didn’t go well, even with all that effort and evidence behind it. Left my husband jangled and angry. He hates injustice, large and small, and he felt like they didn’t even listen to him or bother to understand the quite valid reasoning we had laid out.

Years ago I did this. I went to the Tax Appeals. I walk in. The chair says, “You have 5 minutes.” OK…I was prepared. I had my powerpoint presentation and a “package” to leave with the board.

I had comparables from the real estate ads and had done a statistical analysis based on number of bedrooms, baths, acreage. I showed that our house was appraised like a 5 BR house, where ours is 3BR.

My impression was that all that was irrelevant and the only thing that counted was that I had included a realtor’s letter that said the house was worth $XXX…because that number is what they re-assessed the property at. But the appeal was worth it as they knocked almost $200k off the value

[frugalannie]

Maybe we need another thread about tax appeals? Our tax bill went up 40% this year so we appealed on several issues of fact. Like they decreased the deduction for conserved land from 90% to 50% just for us (everyone else in town stayed at 90%). They fixed that. But then after the appeal period they added 1000 square feet to our house (it doesn’t exist and we had a professional company measure it for a sale listing so we know for sure). And for reasons we can’t figure out, they are charging us for 5 building lot acres when no other property in town is charged for more than one, even the property with 12 houses on it. Correcting this to one acre like everyone else would save us $10K per year in tax payments. So, we’re appealing to the state, which should be interesting.

With the real estate market so crazy, we put our property up for sale (major commiseration with those having to prep for pics, videos and potential buyers trooping through). The on-line listing looks fabulous, and we put it on for a very aspirational price. Apparently the assessor decided that was the market value of our farm. It isn’t. No one wants to buy it so we’ve taken it off the market.

But we’re thinking of what we can do because we need to downsize due to age and infirmity. My DH is worried about what I will do without the barn and boarders taking up so much of my time. I’m keeping a smile on my face, but I’m already mourning the loss of this place I know so well and love: the garden filled with plants I’ve collected from friends’ gardens, the house that is way too big but feels like a favorite sweater, and feeling needed to keep the place going. It’s going to be a tough transition but it’s the wise thing to do.

[clanter]

@frugalannie

5 building lot acres when no other property in town

check to see if “extra territorial jurisdictions” are taxable in your state, this allows a taxing district to extend beyond its actual bounders into adjacent land

[frugalannie]

Thank you for the thought, but not applicable here. I think it dates back to when we had an agricultural exemption on much of the land (hay and pasture) which is called “Chapter land” here. Only 5 acres weren’t included in that. But we removed the chapter designation when we put much of the land in conservation (it still is used as pasture and for hay).