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Appeal your property tax now

By John Adams
Published  June 9, 2020 8:03am EDT
Real Estate
FOX 5 Atlanta

Appeal your property tax now

Real estate expert John Adams says now is the time to appeal your property tax.

ATLANTA - When it comes to your 2020 property taxes, there’s still a way for you to appeal your assessment for this year, but the window for that process is closing fast.

So how much can you save and how do you do it? Here with the answers is real estate expert John Adams.

Georgia property tax is administered on a county-by-county basis, and we have 159 counties in Georgia. That means each county has a tax commissioner and that individual decides when to mail an annual notice of assessment to each individual property owner in that county.

What is in this Notice of Assessment? The NOA contains the county’s proposed VALUATION of YOUR PROPERTY as of January first, 2020. 

Unless you appeal that dollar amount, that number automatically becomes the value used for determining the amount of your property tax bill for all of 2020.

So, when is the deadline?  How much time does a homeowner have to file this appeal? That’s the really confusing part...

The deadline for APPEALING an ASSESSMENT is exactly 45 days after the NOTICE OF ASSESSMENT was mailed by the County Tax Commissioner. And EACH County Tax Commissioner decides when he or she will mail to property owners.

So how do we know when the deadline is for MY PARTICULAR COUNTY? That’s an EXCELLENT QUESTION! The 45-day countdown begins on the day that the county claims it mailed the Notice of Assessment to you, but there is no guarantee that you will actually RECEIVE that notice. Whether you get it or not, the deadline is set in concrete at 45 days AFTER the mailing of assessment notices has occurred. And the only way to know for sure what the deadline is for your particular county is to CALL THE COUNTY TAX COMMISSIONERS OFFICE.

Gwinnett County is traditionally the first county in Georgia to mail their notices, and theirs went out on May 1. Add 45 days to May 1 and you get June 15.

So if  your property is in Gwinnett, you have until MIDNIGHT on Monday, June 15 to file an APPEAL. And in many counties, including Gwinnett, you can file your appeal online instead of mailing. Just search on your county and PROPERTY TAX APPEAL.

CALL your COUNTY TAX COMMISSIONER and tell them you want to file a PROPERTY TAX APPEAL. Make sure you STRICTLY adhere to your county deadline, because there are NO EXTENSIONS for any reason.