Are You Serious, Property Tax Cap is Not Working

Originally posted 2009-12-24 05:00:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Visiting and revisiting the property tax issue has become a pet peeve of mine for many reasons:

• Property taxes are too high
• Cities, towns, and states rely to heavily on property taxes so there is no incentives to lower property taxes
• As a result of the property taxes being thought of as an open check, there is a lot of governmental overspending and abuse of monetary privileges.

To add insult to injury on this issue, I found an article today that states that here in Indiana farmers, as well as, homeowners are not getting the anticipated tax relief that the tax cap hope to create due to increases in the assessed value.

I am sorry, an increase in assessed value in a real estate market where a seller can not get what he or she paid just two years ago on a home.

Readers the only way to eliminate this hog wash is to file your property tax appeals.  Here is some helpful links below that will help with that:

• What is Assessed Value and How Does It Influence My Property Tax
• Property Tax Appeal Review (Video 1 of Section 1)
• Evaluation of Property Tax Appeal Findings

Related articles on property taxes

• Rents drop for 128,500 T.O. households (cbc.ca)
• Wis. court won’t review tax ruling against Xerox (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Daley Property Tax ‘Gimmick’ Clears Finance Committee (huffingtonpost.com)
• Property tax debate flares up in P.E.I. (cbc.ca)
• Tax changes mean big hit for P.E.I. homebuyers (cbc.ca)

It Is Pass Time To Make Your Voices Heard

Originally posted 2009-03-25 12:02:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Today is a great day.  Today, there is a group that is taking a stand for the entire state of Indiana on the issue of property taxes. Today, March 25 at 11:30 am. I, too, have taken a stand by promoting their efforts.  Today, you can march on the State House in Indianapolis.  I would have been there, but due to needing repairs to my vehicle and other things I was not able to be there.  I did, however, speak to one of the organizers he explained the reason for the march.

“Revolt at the State House”

He stated that it does not seem to be enough people voicing their displeasure with government activities.  I agree with him.  As a citizen, you have the right to free of speech.  The increase in property taxes is a great reason to voice that opinion.  Let’s examine why?

With over inflated property taxes, the state can not hope to get new industries to come to this state.  Therefore, there will not be any jobs.  Next, there may be the possibly of citizens moving to another state for better opportunities and lower taxes.  No longer is a citizens going to continue to just watch their finances walk out of the door, so state of Indiana wake up.

How to Fight for Your Home

There is a lot of media attention on the lenders about the foreclosure crisis.  There is also a lot of media telling you fight for your home, but what I do not see is anyone telling you exactly how to fight for your home.  WELL, TODAY THAT IS GOING TO CHANGE.

The first thing that you must be equipped with to fight for your home is knowledge.  This post is guarantee to give you the knowledge needed to fight the lender.

Did you know that despite the fact that you are negoitating a short sale or a loan modification that you could still lose your home?  The reason is that the foreclosure that you are trying to avoid is a lawsuit filed by the lender.

The lender or plaintiff files a lawsuit in  court for the sale of the home to repay the mortgage.  However, what you may not have known is that as the defendant you can file legal documents to resolve the foreclosure.  The resolution can and may be the pending short sale or loan modification, but there must be proof of that information filed by the defendant.  In other words, the lender does not stop the foreclosure proceeding simply because you contact the company and tell them you want to apply for a short sale or loan modification.

The necessary documents that you needed to file can be filed with or without an attorney.  With the latter being said, I can not stress enough DO NOT IGNORE THE FORECLOSURE DOCUMENTS especially if you are working on a short sale or loan modification.

The documents are simple to prepare and file yourself. However, it is very important to know the deadline that the document must be filed to preserve your rights.  This will vary by state, but the deadline are on the foreclosure documents that you receive in the mail or from the sheriff.  In New York, for instance, you have 20 days.  In Indiana, you have 36 days.

Filing the answer for the foreclosure summons or complaint filed by your lender ensure that you receive all notices for future actions on the case.  Another important reason to file an answer is to keep the lender from getting an automatic deficiency judgement due to your lack of appearance or answer to the complaint.

To prevent the latter from happening, you will need to file an answer.  This post will instruct you on how to do just that by providing an example answer to mortgage complaint blog.

Related articles

• Realty Q&A: Help for getting a mortgage modification (marketwatch.com)
• Federal Homeowner Bailouts Don’t Work as Planned (activerain.com)
• The Never-Ending Real Estate Woes Of Bravo’s Real Housewives (businessinsider.com)

Indiana Property Tax Cap Vote on Tuesday

The first step in giving  Indiana citizens the right to determine how much property taxes will be paid in the state begins on Tuesday.    The Indiana House of Representative is voting on a cap of one percent of the assessed value for homeowners, two percent of the assessed value for investors, and three percent of the assessed value for business owners.    This vote is essential because if approved it will go to the Indiana Senate, and then to the public for a vote in 2010 to make it a permanent change to the state constitution.

With the approval of this groundbreaking measure, the residents will final be able to make local cities, towns, and municipalities responsible for wreckless spending that has been going on for decades.  No longer will there be endless amount of money on the back of the citizens of the state.

Related Articles that Oppose Unfair Taxes and the Like

• 2-tier property tax proposal unfair: economist (cbc.ca)
• Indianapolis Web Design Firm – Narrow Gate Media, Marks It’s 10-Year Anniversary in Web Design, Development & Marketing (prweb.com)
• Poll: CA Voters Reluctant To Change State Budget Process (crooksandliars.com)
• Skelos to Paterson: Give us ‘a bill we can act on’ (timesunion.com)

Lake County to Have Tax Sale

Originally posted 2009-03-21 05:48:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

If you are counting on the amnesty bill from the state of Indiana to give you more time to pay your property tax you may be out of luck.  The bill that was developed to help homeowners is stalled in the state General Assembly.    As a result of this stall, Lake County Treasurer John Petalas has scheduled the first property tax sale in two years for July 9.

What does this mean?  It means that if you are behind on your property taxes like 24,000 homeowners are in Lake County you may need to work on getting the money together to pay your back property taxes before then.

Remember, even if your mortgage payment is current, but your property taxes are not you can still lose your home.    The property taxes supersedes the mortgage payment, so most mortgage companies make sure they are paid.  However, if the property is an investment property the latter does not hold true, so if you can pay your property tax before July 9, 2009 do so or you may lose your home to a tax sale.

Will a Trip to Japan and China Bring Jobs to Indiana?

Originally posted 2009-09-01 14:06:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

It remains to be seen if a trip planned by 52 Indiana business and community leaders will bring jobs to Indiana.

The governor believes that this trip is important to “gain ground on other states that are raising taxes and making themselves less attractive to business.”

Presently, Japanese companies employ over 42,000 Indiana residents, so this trip is a means to discover if there are other opportunites for growth in Indiana by those companies or others in Indiana.

The trip is promising to be jammed packed with possible business investors such as: Honda, Mitsubishi, Sony, Toyota, and Subaru.

This is a great opportunity for Indiana, but it is also limiting Indiana in growth potential since once again all the possible investors rely on steel and steel products.

Come on, Governor Daniels, open the state up to opportunities outside of steel.

Indiana Can’t Even Get Budgeting Right

Did you know that Indiana ranked 49th out of 50 in a recent evaluation of the state’s budgeting process?  The main reason the state scored so low was due to not having line item veto and not having a requirement to balance the budget.  With the country’s economical vitality hanging in the balance, Indiana has once again made itself a spectacle of bad government.

The commitee that evaluated the state’s budget did not agree with Representative Jeff Espich that “Indiana’s system is open and appears to be leading Indiana in the right direction.”  I do not agree with the Representative, either.

The state by no means is heading in the right direction, with the highest unemployment rate in decades.  By no means is Indiana headed in the right direction.

There is, however, a slow process in place to resolve the unfair and expensive property taxes.  The first measure that the state took was to realize that there was a problem with the way the assessed value was determined.  However, the state did not come to this conclusion on its own.  It took a law suit. 

Ten years ago a new construction property owner filed a law suit claiming that the assessed value was unfairly advantageous to homeowners of older homes due to the lower assessed value.  The courts agreed and ruled that the assessed value will be determined by a fair market value system.  This fair market value system, however, still needs to be added to the outdated Indiana constitution.  Therefore, the residents of Indiana will be voting on adding this system and changing to a flat rate for all assessed properties.  The rates will be one percent for homeowners, two percent for investors, and three percent for business owners. 

The market value system was adopted and began in 2001; however, it took over two years before any muncipality received the much needed funding.    The flat rate system; however, will be voted on 2010 and if approved by the citizens it will take affect in 2011.

Instead for the last property tax collection in 2000, the state ruled that a collection of seventy percent of that year’s bill would cover any short fall for the new unknown tax bill when it was available. 

This proved to be disasterous for many new buyers because the title companies left it up to the sellers and the buyers to settle any shortfalls.

Incidentally, it took over two years before the figures were known.  As a result, I had a client who was unfairly paying property taxes forom a seller who refused to pay the property taxes when the figures was known years later.  The buyer had to sue the seller.

From the latter scenario, you may be able to see why I, nor the media believe that the “state is on the right track.”

Tell me what you think?  Do you think the state is on the “right track?”