‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’

Having your home valued at $4,400,000 is what most of us would call a nice problem to have.
- Actually it's a pretty bad problem to have. If you bought an affordable house at the time but gentrification comes for your area you suddenly can't afford to live in the house you bought and despite whatever roots you've put down, now you have to try to migrate somewhere else.
  Note that even if your tax assessment says you can get a few million out of your house, it's likely not that easy, it can take a long time to find a buyer in the best of times, I imagine especially if you are seeking a buyer willing to pay millions...
  It's not as bad as renting in the same scenario, but it's not great to suddenly have rich person cost of ownership come at you when you bought into a non rich person level house
- It's not so nice if you can't afford to live in the home you own.
  
  and its not even because you are wasting resources, like water for a large pool, but property tax/land value tax imposed on you.
  I remember that last year pro-LVT people were very loud here on lemmy for some fucking unbelievable reason, and they were completely deaf to being called out that this will happen, that rich people will fuck you over in yet another major aspect of your life

I'm not entirely unsympathetic since property values have skyrocketed ridiculously mostly due to the super rich and hedge funds buying up housing like it's candy.
However, these people got an assessment for doing some renovations without replacing the walls or a major overhaul of the property, then promptly added a whole second floor to the building when they said they were just replacing the roof. They gambled that the assessors wouldn't take note and lost.
- yeah, and the guy was professionally working in the real estate space... feels like they are in the "find out" stage.
  
  What the hell did they even need a house that size for? They look like empty nesters, which means they don't need that size of a house. They want that size of a house. Since it's an investment at this point, and they had that monster reassessed at a ridiculous price, they're better off just selling it and moving somewhere cheap. Well, cheaper.
- they should know better if they are building in a disaster prone area.
- I’m not entirely unsympathetic since property values have skyrocketed ridiculously
  Absolutely.
  Where I live here in KC the county was sued over it, and the people won, and they're still not going to get a reimbursement. Property tax assessments are insane, and millionaire or no, it's exceedingly unfair and wrong.
  Yet another example of how having one party ruling in Washington is screwing all of us over. There's just largely no real recourse.

Yeah some serious boomer logic going on here.
"We thought that if we kept the foundation and the outer walls of the house and we just took the roof off, it was our understanding that we were going to preserve our Save Our Homes and our homestead,” says Debbie."
"the renovations—removing the roof, adding a second floor —ultimately triggered a full reassessment of the home’s value. Under Florida law, once a property is deemed substantially improved, it can be treated as new construction, removing the protections that had capped the home’s assessed value for years."
- Boomer logic ..... "I want all the benefits, entitlements and supports of society and none of the responsibilities."
  
  Can you imagine the pain of having to pay fairly for what you own... Disgusting.
  
  Alright, so you're a young gen z family and you buy your first home, which is all you can afford right now, you're young and you're starting your careers and your family.
  In 10 years, property values have increased dramatically, and you've had a child and you're thinking about your second. Your careers are going well, and you think we should maybe get a bigger place for our expanding family. But oh no, there's an unsustainable housing marketing bubble that refuses to burst, so you can't afford a bigger place anywhere near your job. So you build UP, like they do in every multi-generational home culture, you expand your living space as your family expands.
  It's not a crime or a moral failure to upgrade your home, and you shouldn't jump at the opportunity to beat someone when they're down just because you don't empathize with this particular boomer homeowner.
  
  Trumper logic, you don't own what you own, and you need to either pay more or give it up., and fuck you us wanting nice things
  This is the type of shit destroying us as well.
- They tried to apply the building code laws. In Florida, if you do a renovation and keep the foundation and one wall, you can build to the code at the time of construction. These "protections" never applied to assessment and tax.
  Many houses in that exact area have been bought for cheap and flipped using this work around. They end up with a modern house but can avoid having to spend extra for upgraded storm mitigation, plumbing, and electric.
  
  Yeah that's the same rule up here in Jersey. You can use it to maintain a structure that goes against the current building codes (say the ordinance makes it so you can have as much, you still can). To think that a tax collector wouldn't be like "Hey, there's an extra 1500 square feet, two bedrooms, and another bathroom on this house" is foolish though. And you presumably pulled permits for it all and put it right on their radar.
  The way to do it is piecemeal over several decades. Nobody is none the wiser.
- lol, a basic slab on grade with edge thickeners with 2x4 walls can handle 3 story buildings.
- At the same time, that absolutely is a life altering change. Even the biggest idiots don't deserve to get their life upended. I don't know what the right solution is, but I can extend significant empathy to "I did a dumb thing and I don't know how to keep my home now without uprooting it".
  I've only bought one home and it was recently. It was every bit as aweful as I expected but having seen what they are in for, they might not have the cash around nessicary to sell the home without getting scammed by predatory buyers.
  The entirety of real estate is so fucked
  
  A professional tax attorney built a $4.4M home and expected to keep their original valuation?
  That’s not a big idiot, that’s attempted tax fraud.
  
  They were trying to cheat their taxes and failed. Fuck em.
  
  Won't someone think of the poor multimillionaires?
  
  I’ve only bought one home and it was recently. It was every bit as aweful as I expected
  I've now bought two in my lifetime. I wouldn't call either awful for my experience.
  What was bad about yours?
- I'm sure it's possible to achieve those things if you know the right people.

So you were house rich but they never reassessed meaning last year you paid 15k on a 3.9m home nicw
- Yeah people bitching about the property tax they now have to pay after not paying it for a long time should probably stfu and take the L or W or whatever it is
- That doesn't mean he can afford the taxes?
  If you buy an affordable house somewhere and external developments drive the price up, it doesn't mean that you magically have the means to afford paying 5x as much for something you already own.
  
  Sell it and live somewhere cheaper on your wealth. Oh nos the shitty market gave me 4 million dollars what ever shall I do!

They basically rebuilt their home and are sad it's appraised at market value.
That's at least what I got from it.
- Yeah, not a lot of sympathy from me.
  4.4 mil, wow.
  
  If it’s that big of a problem for their life, why not just sell the house and be multi-millionaires? It’s a non-story. Maybe they should’ve taken that into consideration.

I think I have a limited amount of empathy for the new homeless couple that's about to have $4.4 million in the bank. -Rarely do cases of eminent domain go so well and unlike eminent domain, this was apparently their own doing.

Rich boomers who haven't worked in 30 years want to keep property values high without paying the property tax to go with it

The homeowners have two options, and both options suck.
sell
don't sell
Both alternatives carry costs. But they own a home worth 4.4mil and have to pay 2% of that each year. That's pretty low.
- Renters have two options:
  get fucked
  move (and get fucked)
  At least if the homeowner sells they get the windfall.
- Hmm. So if you buy a house in your 20s, by the time you retire, you would have bought the equivalent of 2.5 houses. One for you, one from the government for the privilege of living in the one you bought, and half a house worth of interest to the bank.
  That's an insane amount of money.
  
  Yes. Living in a safe and orderly society has a subscription fee.
  
  Don't you pay tax also for the purchase itself? Might be anothe 10%
  And the yearly tax, is it based on purchase cost or current value? The later would be harsh seeing how they increase.

Hahahahahahaha
Oh no, their taxes went up with the value of their property
🎻

How were they supposed to know real estate law being… checks notes…
a real estate attorney?
- I was going to ask why they didn't consult a real estate attorney. Apparently they didn't have a good one...
- Working for. That doesn't mean paralegal. Reception, copy, courier, title clerk, mail room, etc
  
  That’s a fair point. But at the very least it can be said she should have had the resources not to be surprised by this.
- Reminds me of when some dumbass i worked with was ranting about owing the government too much money. Turns out he was borrowing from his 401k to do a home renovation. Which of the 1000 things you have to check as read and agreed didn't clue you into the fact that you will be penalized for doing that?

Debbie, who had worked for a real estate attorney for nearly 25 years
Lol, a real estate attorney didn't see this coming? I feel sorry for any clients of hers.
- She worked FOR a real estate attorney. And apparently learned nothing.
  
  Fair enough, ya I misread that. But still!

Yearly property taxes never made sense to me. So you supposedly bought and own something, except if you don't pay the government then they can just take it away.
- The alternative is banks hoarding real state without any need to rent it out or sell it soon. They can just wait until prices get higher.
  That's why in most countries people pay way less property taxes in the house they live in.
  
  maybe there is a middle ground? tax for the 3rd owned land, and increasing for any additional ones?
- Taxes are the price of civilization. You pay taxes on your land, because if you don't, a gang of armed thugs will come and steal it from you and bury you under it.
  
  In China 70% of the population pays no income tax, a very small sales tax, and there’s no property taxes at all. Who you tax is just as important as how much you tax. It is not necessary to tax everyone in a society to maintain a modern civilization.
  
  I see your point for general taxes, but if the federal and state government are already taking your income and many other things how come they're also taking so much in property tax? Many other countries seem to be able to protect you and give you what you need without property tax.
  
  Taxes are, but not necessarily property taxes - they're just one of the many possible ways to tax people.
  
  Lol
- House tax I understand, there is a finite limited of land.
  Vehicle tax however can go fuck itself.
  
  Gotta maintain the roads somehow. Vehicle and gas taxes mean that only those using the are paying.
  
  This is what is needed.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
- I don't know about where you live, but here the property taxes pay for the locality's services: streets, parks, city employes salaries, snow removal, garbage removal, summer camp, community center, etc. So this taxe is very useful. Now, it needs to be well managed and it's a whole other topic.
- My property taxes, largely, go to support public schools.
  I'm fine with that.
  Doesn't mean I should be exorbitantly overcharged.
- It's depressing that we can never truly own even the land we live on. How many seniors lose it all over property taxes? FFS, we have auctions to rape these poor people.
- The alternative is much higher income tax.

basically what happens when you create and support a housing system whose goal is to make profit. doesnt matter if you yourself plan on living in it, people voted for the system that approved the nonsense of longterm profiteering of a basic need.

It's always funny when looking at the tax-system in the US from an EU perspective. Americans looking at any receipt they get in an EU country and immediately pointing out the huge VAT tariff.
Then one only needs to point to the property tax in the US.
- Sales taxes are regressive. People who spend more money on services and less on goods are typically wealthier. Sales taxes hit the poor the hardest. Whereas the property tax on a multi unit building is typically a better rate for each family than a single family home.
  If you read the article these people tried to abuse a loophole that had kept their propery taxes capped for years and they failed miserably. They tried to keep just enough of the home to avoid the value of the home being reassessed for taxes. But they added an entire second story and that triggered the reassessment. Essentially they thought they could cheat and build more home than they could afford to pay for.
  
  Which country doesn't charge VAT on services?
  
  True they abused the system. That wasn’t my point, which is that these high property taxes have a tendency to give high quality services to affluent neighbourhoods and low cost housing get low quality services.
- America also has sales tax

You’d think a real estate attorney would know better.
Anyway, property –with the improvements they made, has appreciated over $163,000 on average every year since they bought it. Ya, $75k more than they planned on sucks, but they can take it from the value of the house no?
- I don't know. I mean, there's a good chance that the original purchase price of the house is almost paid off, but having a sudden $76,000 increase in your bills is going to be tough on anybody. Unless they have made some very bad financial decisions outside of this, that probably is more than double their monthly mortgage.
  And as somebody who has an inordinate amount of equity in a house they purchased far too recently for the amount of equity that I have, it is not exactly easy to pull money out of a house as a homeowner, And even if they do take loans to pay the tax burden, that doesn't mean that the money has been handled. It just has taken today's problem and pushed it off for tomorrow.
  I'm not attempting to justify them. I'm just examining their side with the slightest benefit of the doubt.
  
  They just did an expensive Reno…. None of your comment makes any logic given that they just did an expensive Reno, they could afford to throw money around.

Land Value Tax would solve this.
- Also they live in Florida where there is no income tax so got to tax something.

Fuck off and sell the home. Why is this a sob story.
- Only if you're a boomer.

Sure must be nice having a house to remodel.

That sucks, but I also think the era of the single family home is ending. No regular person can afford these home prices. Even if you can afford a one time renovation on your $650,000 house does not mean you can afford a $90,000/year tax bill. Single family home values have gone off the charts and regular people cannot afford them. We need to increase housing supply.
- They’re artificially high because concentrated wealth is buying up the supply. As of 2024 as much as 25% of the supply is being purchased by institutional investors in some markets
  
  Tbh, concentrated wealth wouldn't be able to squeeze the market if there was a healthy supply. There's a lot of issues with single family homes, but the tl;Dr is that they're expensive because they are by FAR the least efficient way to house people, and it's basically the only kind of housing that most cities allow by zoning area.
  
  This is it, and it’s been happening for years. I had a new home built in 2021 and it’s already appreciated by 25%, and periodically been valued even higher than that. I’m not selling, but that still seems crazy to me.
  Bonus points for the fact the newly built home and land purchase were about the same cost as it would have been to buy an old run down home in the area that would have needed a ton of work and updates. Few people seem to be building new housing, which in conjunction with the corporate housing acquisitions is driving prices way up.
  
  Spot on. Houses are cheap, though, but you'll have to get something like sub 800 square feet and in the shitty part of town. A broken-down house for 120k isn't the greatest investment unless you have a warchest or great job to improve it. Even then, you'll be fighting comps around your house that aren't improved.
  Single income isn't cutting it with anything of quality or merit. You'll have a roof over your head, but the timer starts. Improve or take a loss down the road.
  
  That's just scapegoating bullshit temporarily-embarrassed NIMBYs like to tell themselves to avoid the hard truth that we have to fix the zoning code.
  The fact is, plenty of houses exist at reasonable prices in rural areas and small towns. But you don't want to live in those places, do you? You want to live in a big metro area, just like everybody else. Well, when everybody wants to live in the same place you have to build enough housing units for them all to fucking fit in the same place, or you end up playing musical chairs and the ones who aren't rich lose. That's just a fact of geometry and basic supply and demand, not the diabolical machinations of some villain.
- So many people are cheering but these are exactly the sort of costs that will lock them out of housing or prevent them from improving a property.

“We do have the law to comply with,” Schwartzreich says. “It really puts us in the middle.”
🤣🤣🤣

Every think about downsizing?

Okay I know it's not such a popular opinion but I'm still on the notion that you shouldn't pay taxes for holding on to the place that you live.
Yeah yeah local governments need income and all that and their house is assessed over 4 million dollars and many people can't even afford a home at a 10th of that and they should have known and blah blah blah but come on, commodified housing is bad enough. Paying what amounts to a rent to the state just to hold on to the property, actual repairs and upkeep and other naturally occurring costs aside is insane.
Tax the sales of property. Tax the legal transfer of control of LLCs that "own" property. I'm not even saying never charge property tax on properties not occupied by the owner, but you should be able to have a house to live in without paying the state for the privilege of them not taking it.
- What in the libertarian garbage is this? Do you like roads, schools, libraries, parks, garbage pickup, etc etc etc. Property taxes pay for these things.
  
  But those things do not scale with the (alleged) value oft the property, but with things like property size, number oft occupants, curb length etc. Or could even be billed at actual cost (your garbage example).
  
  Tax Other Stuff
  
  I think you're misunderstanding the post... He's saying property taxes are a necessary source of government revenue (that we all benefit from) but you shouldn't have to pay it if it's a primary residence and there should be a different structure or revenue stream. I agree with that, since a property tax is basically a wealth tax on ordinary people because it is a tax on their single biggest asset.
  
  No. Those things are paid for by other taxes and service fees.
- Tax the sales of property.
  I'm thinking of the untended consequences of that policy. The first I can think of is people simply would never sell their houses because they'd get hit with enormous taxes (large enough to equal decades of property taxes). Home owners would simply rent out the houses when they need/want to move away. So home ownership for those living in the homes would collapse. Further, city services would likely starve from lack of funding because there would be no little revenue and what revenue they got would be very sporadic.
  but you should be able to have a house to live in without paying the state for the privilege of them not taking it.
  There are absolutely houses like that (in the USA at least). Those houses not in cities with police and fire protection, roads, sidewalks, snow plowing, public libraries, or any other kind of city services. If you want the benefits of a society someone has to pay the bill. Alternatively, some cities have income taxes or very high sales tax. Both of which you'd pay to live in the city.
  Who are you suggesting paying the bill for your consumption of city services besides you?
  
  I still think citizens should pay the bill for their services, but tax should be on the basis of income, and wealthier people should pay more to cover for those who can't. And why not income, the money you actually bring in, and not a portion the money your home would theoretically sell for if you sold it? The point at which to take tax is the point of transfer, whether it's labor for a wage or a change of ownership (sales and inheritance).
  I absolutely don't believe that people would be less likely to sell their property because they might have to pay a percentage of the profits from the sale. And if they were less likely to sell it, who cares? Take the money from the excess houses when they die. I think I also mentioned that I'm not principally against taxes on non-resident property (which is essentially abandoned or a business asset if not owner occupied). I'm also not against rent controls.
  Like God forbid one recognize that certain approaches to taxation are problematic, it must mean you're a conservative who's against government services.
- My alternate take. This is a prime example of why housing shouldn't be viewed as an investment. If the value of a home outstrips the rate that wages increase then isn't this story always the logical conclusion?
  
  Eventually no one will be able to afford a house not merely because they can't buy it in the first place, but because even if they inherit it they can't keep up with the tax bill because on paper it's worth 8 times what their parents paid even inflation adjusted. I'm not even making those proportions up, that's about the change in cost in my neighborhood I think.
- You're planning to tax on events like sales and hope there's enough churn to still fully-fund the things property tax provides for? That's really hard to make a case for.
  Given bungalows rarely deliver a town enough to recoup on providing and maintaining services anyway, you're starting with a very tricky goal to maintain. Detroit happened, and that was with consistent, recurring payments.
  Then you want to put a home sales tax on that is big enough to pay the back taxes plus borrowing cost to hold the debt and you think people are gonna go for this? What if you've owned your home 15 years, paid no taxes on the infrastructure maintenance, ambulance fire or police service, mail service, street lights and pavement, and then your house burns down? You could very well owe more than the lot is worth alone. What do we tell the homeowner about that? The town can't absorb the loss given margins are so low.
  Nah. I don't think you can sell that idea to the voters.
  
  You know what stops people from selling houses? Skyrocketing housing prices. Cuts out buyers, and makes loans against equity more appealing than actually cashing out.
  You know what tax people can actually afford, that isn't based on the opinions of appraisers regarding the fickle whims of a speculative market? Income tax.
- Why not tax the property for all value above X. Where X is some amount over the average or median property value. That way, if you can afford a luxury home you pay some tax on it.
  
  It's not a bad compromise, it's just a matter of finding a good value for X. And that's hard to do as housing prices continue to balloon and housing costs take up a greater percentage of people's incomes. Houses that would have cost one year's income in the 60s can easily cost 8 to 10 times that today.
  I don't know, maybe you should have to pay property taxes if the land occupies more than a certain square footage. That could discourage suburban style development and promote greater population density, which could both act as a net positive.
- What home steading a home was supposed to be for. I remember in Texas you could homestead up to 10 arces and not have to pay taxes on that. I totally agree. At the very least taxes shouldn't go up just because the value did. Only time your taxes should go up unless you sell the home, then tax you that amount.
  
  Yeah 10 acres seems a bit excessive to me but I like the basic principle.
  
  This is similar to the property tax structure in California.
  You get a property tax rate on the purchase price, then it only goes up 2% a year or inflation (whichever is lower).
  It makes it pretty impossible to be taxed out of your house. It has downsides though because it applies to commercial real estate and landlord properties as well.

But they’re holding out hope that momentum around reform might arrive in time to help them stay in the home they’ve poured decades of love and savings into.
Yeah thats not going to happen

You don't "own" your house, peasant! You must pay the landlord his rightful share - it's called ~~feudalism~~ Freedom!
- I thought lemmy loved taxes?

Mao was right about landlords
That being said these people can afford to pay this, their house is millions of $s.
- If the house you've been living in for ages goes up in value, that doesn't turn into money you can spend.
  
  I was living in a neighborhood that gentrified and my rent went up a "life altering" amount. I had to move to a different, shittier neighborhood and had nothing to show for it. If a property owner has the same thing happen, they may be forced to sell, but they will get a massive windfall. Renters get nothing besides a kick in the butt.
  
  Sure, but it also makes a human need unaffordable for more people every year.
  
  No but it does turn it into a financially valuable asset which they can sell for a profit. Emotionally I feel for them, I wouldn't want to sell a house I've investment time and energy into. But they're FAR better off than a lot of people on a purely financial basis.
  
  Unless you're my brother, who spends untold amounts of money renoing various portions of his house, then has it reassessed so he can add to his home equity-based line-of-credit, so he can have more money to do more renos ad infinitum. I mean he's done this a dozen times (or more).
  It's a never ending circle of financial death over there.
  
  Eh, I mean it kinda does. They're complaining about having to 91k dollars of tax for nearly 4 million dollars of equity. They could just get a tax free loan guaranteed by their equity and receive millions to live off for the rest of their lives, paying the loan back when they sell.
  They just want to have their cake and eat it. They like the free equity, they just don't want to pay the taxes associated with it.

- until disaster hits your area.
  And someone will shit on it because one rich person lives within 5 miles of you, and calling you a stupid fuck for living there.
  and oh god will the tears of indignation flow from you then.
- any disaster prone area
  Ummm is anybody going to tell him about climate change

Most people are echoing exactly what I would normally say so I'm going to say something that I don't see so often, if it was me in that situation I would also be pissed, not because the evaluation made it too expensive but because the tax that would be given would just be sent over to the military and none of it would be of help to me, my kids, my neighbours and my allies
- none of it would be of help to me, my kids, my neighbours and my allies
  Huh? It's property tax, that's literally how public schools are funded. It's how your local roads are maintained. It's what pays for any local parks you may have. It's what pays for the fire department, and you're going to need them after this serious burn you absolute moron!
  Dipshits with your opinion are the reason the US has a serious problem with crumbling infrastructure.
  
  It's how America funds it's military and the bureaucratic inefficiency stemming from reliance on private companies, if it was my tax money then I would be sufficiently mad that it's being used to only keep the status quo for education, which people decry as mediocre at best, and actively used to partake in Palestine, and provide money to the military Industrial complex instead of, say, construction of a railway or a new act to reform land zoning regulation, providing districts with better funding and reform of police to lessen the authority and increase the accountability.
  Also, instantly assuming exactly what you hate onto me is crazy, the fuck are you doing?