When I appealed last year, I got a substantial reduction in my 2008 assessment. I bought the house in 2007, so the appeal lowered the taxable value to the market value, which was well below the 2007 assessed value.

Great! I saved a lot on taxes for 2008 and was looking forward to saving thousands over the years I would live here.

What I didn’t know was that the appeal would be disallowed by the assessor the following year. For 2009, my assessment rose by more than 10%, despite lower assessments for the rest of the neighborhood. My property declined in value the same as the rest of my neighbors, but because individual properties are not assessed, my assessment rose substantially above the legally established value.

Well, that’s taxes, right? The problem is it’s nearly impossible to find out the rules. Before buying, and as I was looking at various houses, I wanted to have an idea of how much I would be spending over the years on taxes, based on how much I paid for the house. In order to learn the regulations, I did the following:

Contacted colleagues who’ve owned homes in Ann Arbor for years. Not one person had a good understanding of property tax law or the process used by the city assessor–and these were well educated folks.

Asked my real estate agent from Surovell Realtors. He didn’t understand the law or the appraisal process. When he went to Surovell’s legal staff for an explanation, they didn’t know either.

I consulted a real estate attorney. He was not aware that a decision of the Local Board of Review could be reversed and set aside by the city assessor.

Checked the city web site. It does mention the city uses mass appraisals, but that didn’t translate into an understanding for me that this would largely invalidate the benefit of appealing.

Met with with the city assessor, Mr. Petrak. He encouraged me to appeal, but didn’t mention that my appeal would be overturned the following tax year. He also didn’t tell me of the virtual certainty that even though all the properties in my neighborhood would likely have reduced assessments in 2009 due to the falling housing market, that my own property value would be increased more than 10%.

My take after all this was while you do have a legal right to have your property assessed at market value, the city’s lack of transparency combined with complex state laws made it an unpleasant and difficult task that might be worth it for the wealthy who own high value homes and hopefully have better lawyers than the one I talked to, but perhaps not too useful for me.

Although I have a strong case for the review board, I skipped it this year. I did complain to the city council about the poor atmosphere created by the process. Why not make it transparent and easy to understand?

At a minimum, the city could explain that an appeal has little value for many taxpayers. The Michigan Constitution says that assessments should be close to fair market value. Our elected officials ought to support the voters and help people enjoy their legal rights rather than oversee a process which compels them them to appeal every year. Let’s hope the city improves the process.

“Please do something for me for nothing!” Yeah right, buddy.

Meanwhile, having protection against real estate inflation has helped me be self employed, enjoy my home, and contribute to my community in the process. I’m grateful. Especially in past years when paying the taxes – lower as they were – was a stretch.

It is an imperfect system. Good luck to those trying to make sense of it, and finding a fair resolution.

You gotta admire the heavy lifting the Board of Review members have to do this time of year. Don’t forget, these folks are volunteers doing a community service. Thanks.

Those of us who have purchased a house in the past few years have been paying more in property tax (the actual current rate) than our neighbors, even though our houses are worth the same amount. In fact it was sort of a punishment for moving; yet the real estate market was still booming.

Now that the real estate market has turned, long time homeowners are getting less of a discount; they are not paying more than they should be.

This is a different, but I feel accurate way, of looking at this situation.

You can get a current appraisal on your property and if it appraises for less then take it to the tax dept. in your county and they should lower your taxes.