Property Tax Appeal successful - now what?

I appealed my taxes and got them reduced... now what? Neither the county, municipality or lawyer were particularly helpful in what comes next. I assume that I have to get some documentation to the Mortgage company?

NewHomeOwner NewHomeOwner
Jun '15

No. The bill the town sends to your mortgage co will reflect the new amount.

Heidi Heidi
Jun '15

I won my appeal and about a week or two later I got the judgement notice with the new amount from the county.

M & K M & K
Jun '15

I won my property assessment as well. Got it down by about 40K. Hoping to see this judgement reflected in my mortgage bill in the next few months.


I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm curious to know what percentage of people pay their property taxes through their mortgage company. I don't have my mortgage company hold anything in escrow. I pay my property taxes and home owner's insurance directly to the township and insurance company respectively.

Calico696 Calico696
Jun '15

How did you go about appealing? I would like to do this as well.

hopeful hopeful
Jun '15

What township did you appeal your taxes in?

Sally Sally
Jun '15

Hopeful,

Print out and fill out the forms linked below. You'll need to include comparable home sales in your area with the forms. I had a local realtor assist me with comparable sales in my neighborhood. Submit this paperwork to the Warren County tax assessor in Belvidere before April1.

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/other_forms/lpt/petappl.pdf


I received 2 letters from a lawyer's firm stating that they thought I was paying too much in taxes. They said they would appeal at no cost to me -- and charge me a fee if they were successful at reducing my taxes.
I threw the letter away -- but now I am beginning to wonder.

hapiest girl
Jun '15

I appealed 2 years in a row and won. The problem we then faced was the township came in and reassessed the entire town. Our and our properties were assessed at a lesser value, but the tax rate went up and my mortgage payment went up hundreds of dollars a month.

Sally Sally
Jun '15

Hapiest,

I received those law firm letters as well. One was called Esposito and blah blah blah out of Fairfield NJ. Why give them a piece of your tax savings when you can easily do it yourself with a little footwork was my motto! :-)


hapiest girl - I agree with Vic. You were 1000% correct to throw the letter away. Everyone got one of those. Who doesn't think they pay too much in taxes even if they pay nothing? However, just because you throw the letter away, doesn't mean you shouldn't appeal.

It's very easy to find other houses and what they pay on public websites. Find one with similar sq ft, and number of bedrooms in your neighborhood. Compare your taxes to that to see if it's worth it or not. Then the process as other mentioned is easy - get the form, fill it out, mail it in. No lawyer needed and certainly no fee necessary.


Thank you Vic! I didn't realize it was fairly easy to do. I guess I'll wait until around February or March to submit the paper work.

hopeful hopeful
Jun '15

What is the best source to find actual sales prices for comparable properties? Can anyone recommend a Public website and/or a realtor who would actually return a phone call for this?

Thanks much!

hktownie hktownie
Jan '16

I have fought appeals and won, and I have fought and lost. If you can speak clearly and present an argument well enough, you don't really need an attorney. What you really need is proof of the value of your home as of a specific date (usually something like October 1st of the previous year). You can try to get that by getting proof of comparable sales, but whether you can find them depends more on the type of home and the area, and they are never exactly the same as your home, so all can be arguable. (And some municipalities will fight you harder than others.)

I've learned that it's often better, in the long run, to get an official appraiser to provide a value. I got the taxes on one home reduced by over $1,100 a year, and that was more than 5 years ago. That more than pays for the couple of hundred dollars for an appraisal.

JerseyWolf JerseyWolf
Jan '16

congratulatons! enjoy it while it lasts! We appealed and then they reassessed so we're not all the way up to where we were, but it's still annoying they went up at all.

somechik somechik
Jan '16

Be aware !! H-town reassessments can be "flawed" for starters. My last one showed a toilet as well as a "den" that did not even exist.When the "appraiser" said they would have it rechecked.Who showed up ? Same person,(who had NEVER been in the building before) I say the whole process is a con job.

Oldtimer Oldtimer
Jan '16

I received my Preliminary tax bill for 2017 and my taxes went up by over 1200/yr! I'm in shock. I live in a town home in Panther Valley (Mountain Ridge) and am now paying what I paid in Morris Township when I lived in a house with 1-1/4 acres. Its crazy! HAs anyone had success in making an appeal in this area?

Nrbl2016 Nrbl2016
Aug '16

You can win an appeal. The hardest part is trying to prove that your home is really worth less than the assessment. You can try to do that yourself, by finding recent comparable sales, or you can hire a skilled appraiser.

The first thing to do is to actually look at recent sales of similar units in your neighborhood and see what they were selling for, six or eight months ago. That will let you know if the matter is really worth pursuing.

JerseyWolf JerseyWolf
Aug '16

This is NJ expect an appeal and you could possibly be due the previous Amount

oh you lost the form? FU pay me plus the vig.
Oh you lost on appeal because the judge is my grand cousin - FU pay me plus the vig -
oh you're a disabled veteran - FU pay me plus the vig -
oh you had an appeal - yeah we appealed it - FU pay me plus the vig + the penalty vig.

I don't get why you people still expect Jusice or redress before the courts in that state

skippy skippy
Aug '16

I've appealed and won. In fact, it was actually a fairly simple and painless process. We presented comparable sales figures, explained differences between our home and the comparables, and they agreed. The result was a reduction of more than $1100 a year.

I'm not saying that the NJ government isn't corrupt, or that everyone can and will win. But don't just give up. If you believe your home is distinctly over-valued (not by a few dollars, but by several thousand dollars), then appeal it. The filing fee is not a lot. And even if you lose, at least you'll know that you tried.

JerseyWolf JerseyWolf
Aug '16

It is pretty cut n dry especially for a "cookie cutter" like a PV home. As JW says, just find recent comparables near your home and you will probably know the answer before you submit. Must be sale prices. You could always pile Zillow estimates on top, but the comparables are what counts. Timeframe is important and someone in the process should be able to tell you whether the sale needs to be within 6 months, 8 months or a year.

The comparable aspect gets harder when your home is unique due to say, age, size or features. So finding one for PV might be relatively easy but finding a close comparable for an 1800's historic with 50 acres, a pond, Olympic pool, and a llama farm might be a bit tougher.

Amazing that you got zapped; did you purchase the home relatively recently? When did you have your last assessment or re-evaluation done? A lot were done around here within the past few years.

strangerdanger strangerdanger
Aug '16

I received several lettEra from attorneys regarding tax appeal and decided to use one. We ended up up getting our taxes reduced by $1617.00. The lawyer fee was $434.00. Because of my work schedule this worked better for us.
Hackettstown taxes are absolutely a rip off.

Tom Lauter Tom Lauter
Aug '19

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