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Smiling JOe

SoWal Expert
Nov 18, 2004
31,648
1,773
State (or county?) law requires them to calculate the values as of Jan. 1, 2006. And last year there was a 4-6 month period of ridiculous prices, and then almost nothing sold at all. Prices have only started to come down in the past 6 months or so. I'm not saying the property appraisers are justified, but I sure hope they are prepared to come down on their appraisals next year, since it seems like we are headed in that direction. Perhaps they were betting that the market would stabilize, and not head further down? Either way, they should err on the side of the property owners, since clearly this is a market in flux and they have plenty of cash rolling in. Pushing the limits on the values just seems unfair.

Well if they are calculating the value as of Jan 1, 2006, they could have saved answering and returning about 2000 phone calls from the public, calling to question their taxes. :bang: A simple notation stating that would suffice.

I see the problem for next year being that there wont be enough sales in 2006 to get a real handle on market value. One other huge problem will be, that if the market values are dropped dramitcally, the millage will have to increase, and the County Commissioners are going to catch hell about truly "raising" taxes.
 

jhelms

Beach Comber
May 24, 2006
15
0
Update from Bay County... (I rec'd this email from my Realtor)


From: Mary Sittman [mailto:bayco@knology.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:05 AM
To: Mary Sittman
Subject: County Commission On a motion from George Gainer, seconded by Jerry Girvin, the County Commission unanimously voted to reduce their millage by 1.5 and to reduce the millage on the special taxing district (Fire Services) by .25, for a total reduction of 1.75!

All of the calls and letters from everyone and from the business organizations were most effective. We need to send a special thanks to the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Realtors for their resolutions.

The fight is certainly not over. As the other taxing authorities schedule meetings, we should plan to make our presence known. We have already heard an indication that the School Board may consider a reduction in their discretionary millage fund. This is the fund that is set aside by law for capital improvements. Since the School Board also has a half cent sales tax for capital improvements, there may be room to reduce their millage without affecting the qualify of our educational system.

Mary K. Sittman
President
Bayco Development Company
P. O. Box 1669
Panama City, FL 32401
(850) 785-7759
(850) 785-2188 fax
(850) 814-9839 cell
 

Smiling JOe

SoWal Expert
Nov 18, 2004
31,648
1,773
And the good citizen that you are will let the authorities know of these homes so that the owners will quit stealing from the rest of us?
Elect me as Property Appraiser and I will get right on that. Right now, I am too busy reading the Cliff Notes to Shelly's book, "Knowing It All -- For Dummies."
 
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SHELLY

SoWal Insider
Jun 13, 2005
5,770
802
Elect me as Property Appraiser and I will get right on that. Right now, I am too busy reading the Cliff Notes to Shelly's book, "Knowing It All -- For Dummies."

I'll be happy to autograph that for you! :D
 
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Here4Good

Beach Fanatic
Jul 10, 2006
1,269
527
Point Washington
The last person you will ever hear requesting more taxes is me, but let me clarify a minor point. In the technical sense, WalCo did not "raise taxes." Rather, taxes were lowered. It is the assessed values which were increased due to the sales in 2005, which accounted for one of the largest price increases in property value ever. The milage rate (taxable rate) for Walton County has decreased for the last two years, and they are predicting a decrease this year. I have lived in a few towns, both large and small. Never before, have I lived in a town where the milage rate was as low as it is here. Currently, it is just under 1%. Most towns in which I have lived, have a milage rate of at least double that, if not close to triple that. Assessed values were ridiculously low in WalCo, up until last year when the assessed values of the majority of properties in WalCo finally came more in line with the reality of market value. I recall once owning a piece of land which I could have easily sold for $145K, and the assessed value was $15K. That is just one of many examples of the numerous properties which I have seen given a huge break, when looking at the Prop Appraiser's page. I think the growth of WalCo was too fast for the County to keep pace with, thus they were behind. Now, they have caught up, and the market has fallen back a bit, causing many property owners' assessed values to look out of whack to their own detriment. I bet you never heard these people complain when the difference was in their own favor. ;-) This is the first year, that we will see some unjust variances, weighing against us property owners, between the assessed value and actual market values.

I hope I have cleared that up a little bit for those of you not in the know. ;-) Please note that my statement above does not mean that I think WalCo gov't spends money correctly on services and parks for its taxpayers.

I've posted this in the general area, but will reinterate here - if the county collects more money, it is a tax increase, as defined by the TRIM legislation.

TRIM was put in place to protect the non-homesteaded owners - it says to the county that if you collected $100MM at a millage rate of 5.0 on $X of appraised value last year, and this year you find yourself with $X times 1.5 of appraised value this year, you MUST roll back the millage rate to collect the same $100MM, and THEN justify the increases to the taxpayers.

Instead, Walton County BCC is simply making up new categories to soak up the extra appraised value.

Please, please, please go to the county website and look at the budget proposal and go to MyFlorida.com and read about TRIM laws.

Walton County BCC is asking for an overall 37.24% increase in spending!!!! The annual budget, without Capital Projects, goes from about $102MM to almost $140MM. The "other" category, where they stick the pork, goes from $5.2MM to $14.5MM.

It might also interest you to know that as of the last report, in March, we had almost $90MM in the bank - in reserve. Now, that's nice, but it's a lot of money!

You, as a property owner, are ENTITLED to the full rollback, and then must make them JUSTIFY the increase. Please visit the Walton County Taxpayers website and call/email/visit your commissioner.
 

SHELLY

SoWal Insider
Jun 13, 2005
5,770
802
The county NEEDS that money! I heard that the county isn't content with being on the record with the most GCT in the panhandle...they now want to go one step further and install Granite Top Sidewalks
 
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sberry123

Beach Comber
Mar 5, 2006
39
0
my property taxes are 30% more this year than last year. Homeowner insurance on a double wide trailer that cost $30,000 altogether was $120 a month for me, my insurance carrier notified me that it will be triple this year. $360 a month to insure a trailer in defuniak?????!!!!!!
does anyone know of a better insurance company?


So, in a little less than 7 years you will pay your insurance company $30,000. I would try to self insure if possible on this one! $360 x 12months x 6.944 years = about $30K :blush:
 
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