Tag Archives: neighbors

question about the property appraiser for tax assessment?

Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin| 1 Comment

I bought the house for 170,000 in 2007. The latest appraiser done by the government for my property tax was 156,000. But all the houses around us are selling for less. I went to the city hall and asked for a form to reevaluate my house value(I suppose the land value can not be lowered because all my neighbors share the same amount of land value). I’m filling up the form and am required to bring evidence. Here are my questions:

a. I need to list the sale price for 5 similar properties as my evidence. Can I use houses that are in other parts of the city but in the similar enviroment as ours?

b. Can I use the sale price of 1989 or any prices before the housing market got over-heated five years ago? Would those prices be strong evidences, useless evidences, or useful but not effective evidences?

c. Do I need to appear in court and argue with someone? or is it just a discussion in one of the city hall offices?
d. The house value was first evaluated by the government as $220,000. We asked to lowered it and they did. $156,000 was not bad, but many houses in the district are selling for less. Can we ask the city hall to lower our house value again? Will they change it back to $220,000 or maybe $200,000? My god, that would be a big problem.
e. If I am successful in bringing down my house value, would that help all the people on my street? or would it hurt? would they come and do the appraiser again?(guess not, my mum insist on asking it)

Thanks in advance!!!

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Disney in Celina Texas?!?

Posted on October 8, 2010 by admin| 1 Comment

There is something going on here. We have lived here 13 years and bought land southwest of town. We are still a rural area surrounded by farmland and paid $5,000/acre. What the heck is going on that would cause investors to offer 75-100K per acre for our land and all of our neighbors!! When the last investor came knocking we asked what the heck he wanted our property for and he said…”to build a hotel”. It seems odd that people would be planning hotels in an area that isn’t even remotely developed yet! We have heard the Disney rumors and whether it’s Disney or something else…there IS something huge planned for this area. All you have to do is look at what land has sold for in the last year. On average, our property value based on recent sales have more than tripled in the last year! Sadly, our taxes have tripled as well. All I want to know is…why?

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What to do when neighbors driveway is partly on our property?

Posted on October 7, 2010 by admin| 12 Comments

We purchased our home in January and it is obvious since the red flags are still up from the survey that the neighbors driveway is about a foot on our property. It is owned by a real estate agent who IMHO should have known better. She had purchased the lot and built on it about 6 months ago. (she purchased it from the prior owner of my home and the land was divided) (the house is vacant and for sale)
Where do we go from here? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.
Thank you all so much for your replies. A little more info. Our driveways are right next to each other. The day we were moving in, we had one vehicle partly on their driveway but not blocking access. ( shouldnt have parked it there but we figured it was not a big deal since the house was empty and this was only while we moved our things in. While we were moving in, someone left a nasty note to move the vehicle or it would be towed! They didnt even knock on our door. That irked me. I saw the agent there last week and asked her about it and she said she didnt know who would have left that note and that she would do what was right if in fact the driveway was on our property. We left it on good terms and I have pulled my deed. As far as a foot mattering, well we were going to install a basketball goal for the kids and this would make a difference. I was just concerned with what my rights are. In the end I will probably let it go for karmas sake,
LOL frak I was thinking along the lines of those hideous pink flamingos? Perhaps an old toilet with flowers planted in it? Numerous things came to mind.

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How can I get my neighbors to clean up their filthy yard?

Posted on October 1, 2010 by admin| 13 Comments

We will be putting our home up for sale soon and my next door neighbors are the eyesores of the entire block. Dirty diapers in their driveway, and toys and bikes and trash everywhere. They live in a two bedroom home with 5 children under 10 years of age. Their filthy old beat up recliner is on their front lawn. HELP? But…I can’t just ask them to “clean up” as we turned them in for animal cruelty last year. They were literally starving their poor dog to death. (We feed it now regularly as they still don’t feed or water it for days on end.) What can we do???

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How far does my neighbors property line have to be from the foundation of my house?

Posted on August 27, 2010 by admin| 4 Comments

The home I recently purchased was owned by the sister of my current neighbor. Sometime back she sold him a strip of land right next to (under a foot) from my home to use as parking for his apartment building next door. I was told by someone that there needs to be so much space between his property line and the foundation of my home. Was this a valid sale? This is causing some major problems as his tenants are a foot from parking in my living room! HELP!

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