Reassessment in Luzerne County

Anybody file an appeal yet? We are they are off by 1600 sq,. Ft and its not to out advantage. That's over two houses on the same lot. the one house is off by nearly 1000 sq. ft and it's only a 1100 sq. ft. house.

I'm having trouble finding information on exactly how to determine the square footage. I'm assuming you measure the outside of the house and that's it?

Yeah Richard, length times width times the number of stories (not including the basement) gets you square footage of living space. The people the county hired to do the reassessment really assed it up. I got lucky in that they were right about the size and price of my house. Of course my taxes doubled since they appraised the house 10 years ago when I put the addition on but that's another story. So much for property tax relief. The average homeowner will see about 100.00 from the gambling money applied to their property taxes. They raised my taxes by 2000.00 and give me 100.00 back and I guess they expect me to be happy. Arghhh, to bad this wasn't in the flame suit central thread.

Actually they appraised the other house as 2 1/2 stories assuming the attic was finished. It's a big attic but its not finished. I can understand them screwing up the square footage a little especially on the big house but the little house was so far off it's ridiculous.

A guy I work with owns a double block as a rental. They appraised each side separately. One side was almost double in value as the other. They claimed the attic was finished on one side but not the other. They didn't go in the house so how did they determine that? The company that did the appraisals has a real good thing going. They mess up the appraisals then get paid extra for each appeal. Nice work if you can get it.

I'm waiting to find out who's brother in law owns the company. The big house we have is a double block too but they didn't appraise it separately. What's funny is the little house as appraised by them has almost the same value as the double block which is almost 4X the size and in a better location.

Appeal filed, I only wish the house was that big sheesh, I would subdivide, lol.

Well as I've been looking around and the square footage is the second thing they take into account. The outside appearance is the first thing. The guy across the street for simliar sized lot and maybe half the square footage of our two houses combined is paying double. Brick construction...

I checked with some of the other neighbors houses and although most of them are fair in comparison some f them are just way off compared to other similar houses.

Being way off compared to your neighbors in similar houses is grounds for an appeal. I already checked my neighborhood out. They're all in line with mine.

Well ours isn't off relative to most of the neighbors. There's a few that are higher than what they should be is what I meant. Having said that since ours is so high the ones that are on par must be too high just like ours. e.g everyones is too high and some are really getting the shaft. The square footage between the two houses is off by like 1600 square foot so it's going to be a significant amount.

Reassessment process flawed, taxpayers told

BY HEIDI RUCKNO
STAFF WRITER
07/03/2008

...Rodgers outlined what he saw were two fundamental flaws in the reassessment process. The employees hired by 21st Century Appraisals Inc., the company in charge, were not qualified, and that the assessments were from 2005, he said.

Rodgers advised anyone who was even thinking about appealing his assessment to spend the $5 to file for a formal appeal. The forms must be filed by the appropriate deadlines, because late appeals will not be heard. A formal appeal can be expensive, so Rodgers advised property owners to consider that. With an appraisal and an attorney, the average homeowner could easily spend about $800, he said....

....One man wanted to know if the group should file a class action lawsuit.

Rodgers said it would only take one case to overturn the entire reassessment process. If a judge ruled the appraisers were not qualified, or that the values were old, it would be null and void, he said.....

http://www.citizensvoice.com/site/news. ... 5154&rfi=6

Oh boy here we go, ....eh whats another 8 million...

On a humorous note someone forgot to change the image on the Citizens Voice front page and its the one from yesterdays front page. It' fits very well though, maybe on purpose?

Hopefully somebody files a class action lawsuit and throws this whole thing out. I don't mind being reassessed but at least have it done by someone competent. Next we should throw Moe, Larry and Curly out (County Commissioners)

As far as the commisioners go so far I have nothing against Petrilla, she seems to be doing a fine job so far especially breaking away from Skrepnak. Urban I'm on the fence but there really isn't much he can do because he's the minority. As far as Skrepnak he should resign, he should have resigned many months ago. I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the end of his woes either because there are ongoing investigations about the plethora of recent problems, if they tie him to the other 8 million a year fiasco with the juvenile detention center there is going to be a lot of people going to jail. I'll bet it makes national news, it may do it now when everything is said and done.

Normally anyone can appeal a reassessment by filing a grievance on the proper day. Remember: unheated space is a porch, not to be counted as sq. ft. of living space. Around here people paint every side of their houses except the front....

Yes e.alleg but it appears that this company has botched this project. By the way things are going now they aren't going to certify them in time for the next tax season. Lots of discrepancies and inaccurate appraisals that are way off.

Your paint comment brings up an interesting question as to whether its even worth it to improve your house if you're a person of small means. For example there was a property out on Harvey's Lake that was featured in the paper. The guy started out with a small cabin type structure as he described it and kept adding additions and improving the property over the years. It was appraised for a few million.

He may have the money to pay for it, I really don't know but that's really not the point. What if you're someone without a lot of income and most of the value of the home was simply because of hard work over many years to make it that way? You can literally tax yourself out of being able to live there. Doesn't seem very fair. If you're buying a new home it's different because you know exactly what you are getting into but if you do as he did you can have a serious problem on your hand.

e.alleg wrote;

Normally anyone can appeal a reassessment by filing a grievance on the proper day.

From what I understand, not having done it myself. About all you can hope for on appeal is a 10% reduction. Glad I'm not living in Luzerne County. Many people I know does. I can feel for them as well as all citizens there.

Hey Neil Young is on Letterman. God is he old. Oh, wait a moment. I'm the same age as he. Oh well Capt.