The informal tax assessment appeals for Allegheny County will begin in January, 2012. Don't be fooled into thinking the process is not important.  In fact, it can be very important to correcting errors concerning the market value of your property and the resulting tax bill.  Make sure you are prepared to talk about the value units of comparison such as living area square feet, above ground living area, lot size, location land value differences, depreciation etc. For commercial and industrial properties it is even more complicated...

Over the years some Counties have enacted county tax assessment appeal rules that are designed to chill the rights of the taxpayers.  The County officials put roadblocks in the way to discourage the taxpayer from appealing an unfair assessment which means the County does not have to deal with illegal and incorrect assessed values.  We represented a client in Crawford County, Pa last year.  Our client owned several small rental properties and based on the income and sales comparison approaches  to value, were overvalued and over-assessed...

The County has told the Judge who ordered the real estate tax reassessment that they are behind schedule due to lack of qualified assessors needed to complete the process on time. The original plan was to have the preliminary assessments done sometime in 2011. The latest news is that May of 2012 may be the earliest date that the certified market values will be ready. Informal appeals (preliminary review by taxpayers of their values) can not proceed until then. The latest comment from the County is they doubt there will be time...