If you purchase a home and the assessed value is lower than the appraised value, you may submit an appeal to the El Paso County Assessor’s Office in order to lower your property taxes. Make sure and read through all of the information regarding appeals on the Assessor’s website.
For example, if you submit an appeal to the Assessor’s Office for a home you recently bought that was appraised for less than the assessed value for the home, the County will not honor your appeal. Why? Because the assessed values are based on appraised values from June 30, 2006. In this type of situation, the homeowner would have to wait to submit an appeal would fall into the next valuation period and to wait to submit an appeal until that time. This may not seem fair but that is the current Tax Law in Colorado!
According to the El Paso County Assessor’s website:
“Pursuant to Colorado State General Property Tax Law, in defending any value for ad valorem taxation purposes, only sales occurring within a designated time frame
may be used. The “data collection period” (also known as the Current Base Year) for tax years 2007 and 2008 would be sales that occurred between January 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006. This means that only properties having sold within this time frame may be used as comparables when estimating a market value! “
For further information on available Real Estate in Colorado Springs contact your Colorado Springs Realtor, Patricia Beck.