Screw You Albany

Mar 31, 2008 at 9:53 AM
19 comments

We just got our latest tax bill and as of May our mortgage is increasing $500 per month. They re-appraised our house at the height of the inflated housing market and the value of our home increased by over $100,000. Not that we'd ever be able to sell it for that. Of course, my grandmother was dying and I was out of town during the time it needed to be contested. Mr. Val didn't want to spend money up front on an appraiser to contest the city and now we'll be paying about 5 times the cost of an appraisal this year alone (which I tried to explain to him, but he doesn't EVER want to spend money until after a problem has spiraled out of control...this applies to car/home repairs, etc. and drives me up the fucking wall). I nearly had a breakdown this weekend. Here, let me snap my fingers and magically come up with an extra $500 EVERY FUCKING MONTH for the rest of the year.

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Holy Crap!

Part of the sticker shock is because when we received our tax bill last year we paid it in full, resulting in a fairly low monthly mortgage payment in 2007. Even if we paid it in full this year our monthly payment would be over $200 higher than it was in 2007. It's still a ridiculous increase for only ONE year. Everyone knew the market was over-inflated and due for a correction, yet our mayor wanted to get everyone at the height of the boom so he could say that the tax percentage didn't increase (but the actual dollar amount sure did).

oh fuck. what kind of crazy taxes y'all pay? 500 extra per month over an extra 100K in house value = 6% tax rate. is that for reals? damn. ours is like 0.8% or something like that.
this really, really sucks val, I'm sorry. do you know any real estate people who can help you contest this? maybe myke can recommend someone?
there's got to be something that can be done. you can't be the only ones affected by this.

No, we're not the only ones. Most people who were able to contest it last year did so successfully. We really needed to be able to take more time last year to understand HOW to contest it. It probably wouldn't have been too terrible, but it seemed like an overwhelming task at the time (with deaths and illnesses and all that shitty stuff). I've got to do some digging and see if there are windows every year, or if we have to wait for the city to re-appraise all properties again. I really just don't know. They should have courses in home ownership for idiots like us. In the nine years we've been here, the house had been re-appraised a handful of times, but it never was a big deal before this.

gosh, don't call yourselves names. it hurts.
I can totally understand with all the stress you were under last year.
it seems to me (IANAL), that since your house had been reappraised several times before without any major changes, you had an expectation that it'd be the same with this reappraisal. also, since most who fought it were successful there are basis to say the appraisal was overinflated and that the appeal time limits should be extended.
best of luck with this -

I really wonder if you can't get the ear of someone in your county office who understands DEATH in the family as a reason for needing an extension?

I'm crossing my fingers for you.

That sucks. Sucks hard. Sorry to see shite like this happening.

I found a bunch of resources online, but I've got a metric assload of reading to do before I'll even know if we've got a leg to stand on.

In better news, we did some other mortgage related investigating over the weekend and learned we'll have paid off 20% of our principal as of this coming August and can request a cancellation of our PMI (no we did not put 20% down on the house, for shame).

sheeeeeeet, that sucks! How can they expect people to dig out that kind of extra money every month?? I really hope you can find a loophole or something!

[this is good]

(((($$$$$hugs))))
The entire economy thing is carp.
We are so totally %#$*ing screwed.
Sorry -- same kind of thing going on here. It sux.

Oh OUCH.

Val, that blows giant chowder chunks. Ours went up, too and I - being distracted - did not take care of it by deadline. Mr. sKz - of course - can't be bothered with petty details like paying bills or oil changes or taxes even in his former life and I have no reason to believe he has changed. Oh to live in a cloud of obliviosity.

Isn't it funny how your house - just sitting there falling apart quietly - suddenly is worth a lot more money? What a jacked up world.

Good grief. That's really high. I grew up in a house that was on commercial property and because it was right on the highway, my dad paid commercial rates like forever. I don't know if he ever tried to fight it, but I know it was absurd at the time. The city kept saying "but it's commercial property". Ugh. $500 more a month sucks.

That's screwed up. Especially with the current market. I mean, they do not want to cause even more economic distress. It's like all the loan companies that were real bitches about a year ago and were threatening with foreclosure. Look where they are now, hands full of depreciating land that they can't get rid of and that they don't want and many of them looking into bankruptcy themselves. I mean, I heard a commercial on the radio from a housing company that was offering three thousand dollars just for referring people to them. The same company that last month said this was prime time for renting or buying a house, a steal at 150 thousand. And a month before was a steal at 200. Going down in the space of three months 50 thousand and then to paying people to send them SOMEONE, ANYONE to consider them? There's only so much bluff you can force into the housing market. As much as this sucks for you, perhaps you might be able to take a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that this will probably come back and bite them in the ass hard?

OMG - keep digging until you find more info - holy shit! :-(

Good lord. I would still be crying. I hope it works out.

Eek! That sucks in a big, big way. :(

[Clusterfuck at the Statehouse] All I know about Mayor Jennings is that he is on TV quite a few times a day. I got my re-assessment for my parents house but didn't have to figure anything out only because I paid a full quarter and now the house is gone. My sister's (paid them too) were about $2000. a year. Her mortgage is only like $400. a month. NY is kown for its taxes. Albany is one of the most expensive cities IMHO having lived all over the country. I still love it there though. Sorry. That has to hurt. I couldn't make a jump like that right now.

Valerae replied to Dancing Bear’s comment:
Apr 2, 2008
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I cannot believe Jennings is still in office. I'd say that his term in office has been a joke, but it's no laughing matter when he's forcing citizens out of Albany with his policies. Fucker.

Screw You Albany

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