Don't Let Them Increase Your Property Tax Payments

We know we're treading in slightly dangerous territory here -- while we're fairly sure a good chunk of our readership are homeowners (condo, single-family, multifamily, whatever), we know an even larger chunk are not, and could care less about the burdens of homeownership, predatory mortgage-ship, and property tax increase-ship.

But for those of you that this applies to (or those of you thinking about owning property in the future), consider this a bit of a PSA.

Property owners should have all received their reassessment statements by now. Prop 13 will only let the city increase its valuation of your property for tax purposes by 2% -- but should you let them take even that much in a down market (understatement? perhaps; we'll leave that to the experts)?

Point is, you might want to think about contesting your reevaluation. What not everyone knows is that you have until Sept. 19th to contest it -- go to the city assessment appeals board's site for explicit details. We're afraid that forms are indeed involved. But should the government make more money if your place isn't actually appreciating? Yeah. Thought not.

Picture from CBS 5.