The Assessment Chaos - Why Allegheny County Needs a Reassessment Now. The Assessment System is Wrong and Unfair to Homeowners.

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,240
Please rise. Court is now in session.

2
00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:03,360
All rise.

3
00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:04,480
All rise.

4
00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:12,320
I strenuously object. A legal podcast brought to you by the Pittsburgh law from a Flaherty Fardo

5
00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:13,520
is now in session.

6
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:18,400
All those seeking information about the law and legal matters affecting the people of Pittsburgh

7
00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:23,440
and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, half-baked opinions and a dose of self-indulgence

8
00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:25,520
are invited to attend and participate.

9
00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:29,200
I want the truth! You can't handle the truth!

10
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:30,320
I object, your honor.

11
00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:31,520
Your honor, I object.

12
00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:32,160
You would!

13
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:38,080
Listen, we don't know you. We don't know who you are. We don't know what you do.

14
00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:41,280
So please do not rely on anything we say as legal advice.

15
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:45,280
I'm Noah Fardo, presiding. My wingman, attorney Bill Rugell.

16
00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:47,600
And all we're trying to do is bring a little irreverence.

17
00:00:52,160 --> 00:00:54,000
Well, let's start the insanity.

18
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:55,200
Call the first witness.

19
00:00:55,200 --> 00:01:02,720
What I strenuously object today to is the entire system concerning Allegheny County

20
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:06,720
property tax appeals. It's a train wreck. It's a disaster.

21
00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:10,880
Hold on, Noah. Hold on one second. Before we get into the nuts and bolts here,

22
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:14,320
who are you and what are we doing? What is this?

23
00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:17,760
Don't tell me what I know and don't know. I know the law.

24
00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:20,160
Sorry, I was dying to use that one.

25
00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:27,280
But well, do I know tax appeals? Yes, I've helped more than 10,000 property owners

26
00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,200
save tens of millions of dollars over the last 20 plus years.

27
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:36,400
So this is a topic that I feel uniquely qualified to share my opinions.

28
00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:37,440
Are you OK with that?

29
00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,760
No. What I'm trying to figure out is more broadly speaking,

30
00:01:42,960 --> 00:01:46,080
there are lots of attorneys. Why are you doing a podcast?

31
00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:48,080
I like to help people, Bill.

32
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:52,080
I like to help people. It's the only reason we're here.

33
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:56,160
So it's a desperate effort to make sure that your opinions get shared with the world before

34
00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:58,560
you're underground. Yeah, I want to leave something.

35
00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:06,400
I like the idea, I think philosophically of my voice living on whether it annoys people

36
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,720
or helps people, which I'm not sure yet.

37
00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:11,280
There's a pretty good chance it does both of these things.

38
00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:14,960
It has a distinct possibility of doing both.

39
00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:19,360
Mike, the podcast producer here, how about you guys actually get to doing the show?

40
00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:21,360
There you go.

41
00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:22,800
Patting each other on the back.

42
00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:24,960
Yeah, I know. Right. What a love fest.

43
00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:30,080
Allegheny County property taxes are some of the highest in the country.

44
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:32,560
Thirteen thousand people appealed this year.

45
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:35,600
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased property taxes.

46
00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:36,160
And I object.

47
00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:39,760
You agree?

48
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:45,920
I mean, I don't necessarily agree that we shouldn't tax people, period.

49
00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:48,880
But the system is obviously a mess, right?

50
00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:52,800
Well, our goal today, listen, all these taxes being raised, our goal is simple.

51
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,680
It's to help these people help explain how they can lower their property taxes.

52
00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:01,520
And between you, I and our partner, Nicole, we got 45 years

53
00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:04,240
of handling property tax appeals. That's a lot of time.

54
00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,040
No qualified greed disagree.

55
00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:12,240
I honestly object. I do not object to the statement regarding our own qualifications

56
00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:16,400
when it comes to property tax appeals, unless there's some 90 year old lawyer out there

57
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,600
who did a bunch of tax appeals back in the 70s that I don't know about.

58
00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:27,680
I cannot imagine there is anybody who has been representing more Allegheny County property

59
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:32,160
owners in tax appeals over the last 20 years. It's just not possible.

60
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,320
Hey, now, this is a pilot, William, right? This is a pilot.

61
00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:40,320
Now, just to jump off track, and I do want to lower people's property taxes, but

62
00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:42,640
rate the Seinfeld pilot for me.

63
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:45,120
It's a six out of 10.

64
00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,160
It's a six out of 10. It worked. It will. It got carried.

65
00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:52,240
All right. No relation between Seinfeld and property taxes, but

66
00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,760
we will keep track of who can reference Seinfeld more and keep score, perhaps.

67
00:03:56,640 --> 00:03:57,600
I'm fine with that.

68
00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:02,000
There's a couple of things going on that are big news in tax appeals that people need to know

69
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:06,960
right out of the gate, right? The tax appeal deadline is over. March 31st was the last day

70
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:14,080
to file appeal. The school district files 13,000 appeals and people are getting letters in the mail,

71
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:18,400
including myself. I got one as well that we're going to have a hearing and we're going to raise

72
00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:22,480
your property taxes. Let's talk about property taxes first in general.

73
00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:25,200
Do you know the history? Did you research the history for today?

74
00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:27,360
I did not.

75
00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:34,960
Ah, I did. I did. And there is no state in the union that does not collect property taxes.

76
00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:41,760
And the property taxes actually started in old England in 1500. The US started in the late 1780s.

77
00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:48,640
So it was almost immediate. But going back to what I said before, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania,

78
00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:56,400
Pittsburgh pays twice as much in property taxes as cities like Atlanta, New Jersey,

79
00:04:56,400 --> 00:05:00,640
California. And everybody says, well, how can that be? I mean, that doesn't make any sense.

80
00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:07,840
It's because of how we do our tax system. Those states increase the sales tax and they increase

81
00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:14,240
the income tax. We fund all of the education just through the property tax. And a half million

82
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:21,840
dollar house in Allegheny County pays $15,000 a year in property taxes, right? I mean, half a

83
00:05:21,840 --> 00:05:27,040
million isn't that much anymore. $15,000. In New Jersey, they pay about half of that, $7,500.

84
00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:34,880
So I want to talk a little bit first about how the system is flawed, why it is flawed,

85
00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:38,240
and hear your thoughts on that.

86
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:44,240
Well, so one of the things to note is a lot of states have what they call a uniformity

87
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:49,920
clause in their respective state constitutions or laws, right? That requires that taxation

88
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:57,040
throughout the state be uniform. Pennsylvania is relatively unique in that historically,

89
00:05:57,040 --> 00:06:02,640
our Supreme Court has read that uniformity clause as to require that all taxation be flat.

90
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:08,560
We do not have a progressive income tax. The way that, you know, when you pay your federal taxes,

91
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:12,160
you have different tax brackets that pay different percentages. That doesn't exist

92
00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:19,120
in Pennsylvania income tax, which makes it harder for the state of Pennsylvania to raise the funds

93
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:26,720
it needs to operate by virtue of an income tax. Because you can only charge so much for a flat tax

94
00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:31,840
before the people at the lower end of the income spectrum find that a burden they can't possibly

95
00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:32,320
meet.

96
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:37,120
All right. So what you're saying is because we have the flat tax on income, we're not a,

97
00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:41,920
we have to fund it through the property tax. Okay, that's fine. But if we're going to do

98
00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:46,240
this system, the word you said was uniform. And that's the big issue in the law. And that's what

99
00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:51,760
people are writing articles and talking in news about is you have to have uniformity in property

100
00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:57,840
taxation. And all that means is two houses that are neighbors that look identical should pay the

101
00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:00,160
same amount in property taxes. Agreed?

102
00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:07,120
Agreed. And that's, it's interesting because the same uniformity clause that has tied our hands,

103
00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:11,440
and, you know, I don't know how to weigh it out, you know, good, bad, indifferent,

104
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:14,720
but that same uniformity clause applies to property tax appeals.

105
00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:20,880
What was it? About 20 years ago now, Pennsylvania or Allegheny County had its system at the time

106
00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:28,480
thrown out on uniformity provisions that the entire county, by not doing reassessment, the property

107
00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:36,160
tax burdens across people in the county were found by the court to be so non-uniform that the court

108
00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:38,480
ordered a reassessment for the whole county.

109
00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:43,840
So it's an interesting concept on how we got here, right? And if you look at the 30 year history of

110
00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:48,960
property tax assessments in Allegheny County specifically, right? Even before I started

111
00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:56,160
practicing in the mid nineties, is when it happened that the commissioners of Allegheny County,

112
00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:02,480
but before we had a county executive, had the same issue. I mean, you had, people have been

113
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:08,640
screaming about unfair property assessments for 30 years, and then it went through the courts.

114
00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:12,880
And in 2002, they said, okay, we're going to reassess. We're going to have an extra

115
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:16,960
come in and we're going to look at the value of these 580,000 properties.

116
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:23,920
I was a young kid at the time, Bill. It was so out of whack. I mean, it was like the wild west

117
00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:31,120
back in 2002. So 2000, 1999, it's chaos. 2002, they do this reassessment. They say, okay, every

118
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:36,480
here's how we're going to value every property. And the goal at that time and Judge Wettek was

119
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:41,920
great. I mean, he retired, but he was a great judge. The goal was then you do it periodically.

120
00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:48,480
Because over time, as property values increase and the school districts target single properties,

121
00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:52,880
the system gets farther and farther out of whack. Well, they wait 10 years. They don't do anything

122
00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:58,320
until 2012. And then it's all screwed up again, thousands and thousands of appeals are filed.

123
00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,800
And then they do the reassessment again in 2013. And you were part of that reassessment with me

124
00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:09,840
then. I mean, you remember that's correct. 2013, they do the reassessment. And then they don't do

125
00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:16,800
nothing. And now here we are. 2022 and it's chaos again. Let me ask you this. Because I know my

126
00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:22,480
answer. If they had asked you if anyone had come up to you in 2012 or 2013 and said, how long do

127
00:09:22,480 --> 00:09:25,840
you think it's going to be before the next reassessment? Would you have thought that we

128
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:32,080
would still be using those numbers today? You know, it's so politically unpopular to reassess. It's

129
00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:38,480
a it's a politician's death is what it is. You know, everybody thinks a reassessment is bad.

130
00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:44,640
It's not necessarily bad. If it values everybody fairly, it should reduce the millage rates. And

131
00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:49,520
we're going to talk about that in our upcoming episode, tax appeals for dummies, which does

132
00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:55,520
break down the simple assessment process in Allegheny County. But if it treats everybody

133
00:09:55,520 --> 00:10:01,360
fairly and reduces the millage rate, it's a it's a win for more people than it's a loss. Right now,

134
00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:06,800
the system is set up for winners and losers. If you bought a house recently, you lose.

135
00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:13,120
If you've lived in your house for a long time, you win. Right. The system is unfair. When you

136
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:21,200
freeze this, the assessments and property values rise as they have. It creates inequities among

137
00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:29,920
similarly type homes agreed. We an agreement there. We are. So recently, a new law came on,

138
00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:36,720
and I actually read the law this morning. HB 52. So that wrong. So that's a good one.

139
00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:42,400
So not a new law yet. This is a bill. It's a proposal. No, but the media calls it a law.

140
00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:48,880
Like, well, it's a proposed law. It hasn't passed. It's even worse than that when you read it,

141
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:54,960
because the beginning of it says something along the lines. I intend to introduce legislation in

142
00:10:54,960 --> 00:11:01,200
the future. I see. Well, I have I read one of the news stories, my guess here, and this, you know,

143
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:05,200
it's the sort of reckless speculation that I hope can be preserved for all eternity.

144
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:11,120
When I make it is that if there is an HB number associated with this, it sounds like a bill that

145
00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:15,280
exists and has been introduced. Otherwise, it wouldn't have a number. On the other hand,

146
00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:22,320
it's it's a it doesn't have a like Pennsylvania consolidated statute number. So I think what we're

147
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:27,760
dealing with is a bill that somebody has written that is subject to all of the legislative rigmarole

148
00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:33,680
that can happen to that bill. No one may ever even vote on it. It may be amended beyond recognition.

149
00:11:33,680 --> 00:11:40,080
All of that is in play. Yeah. I mean, basically what the law is is trying to do is eliminate,

150
00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:45,600
you know, the school districts from filing a tax appeal against a new home buyer.

151
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:50,000
Because like we said, if you buy a house for five hundred thousand dollars and you're assessed at

152
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:54,640
one hundred, the school district is raising your property taxes because you just bought a house.

153
00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:58,640
But your neighbor who's lived there longer isn't appealed. And he's still at the hundred. And you're

154
00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:02,960
like, I'm paying three times as much as my neighbor. This doesn't make any sense. Well,

155
00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:08,400
we see that and we see that practically. Right. Every day, the majority of the calls that we're

156
00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:14,080
getting as a law firm right now are people who recently purchased new homes. Mostly they have

157
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:19,440
out of state cell phone numbers as the as the number to call them back on. They've just moved

158
00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:25,680
into the area. And lo and behold, the school districts have decided to take essentially take

159
00:12:25,680 --> 00:12:30,480
them to court to try to increase their property taxes. It's happening all over the county. It

160
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:36,640
happens all over the county at this time every year. So the problem with the law is it sounds

161
00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:41,600
good like, yeah, they shouldn't be able to do that. But because it's been so long since 2013,

162
00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:46,560
over one hundred thousand people have already gone through the appeal process. So now we're

163
00:12:46,560 --> 00:12:50,720
just going to treat one fifth of the entire county unfairly. It's stupid. It just doesn't make any

164
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:58,080
sense. Well, let's let's back up for a minute. The current system, right in the current system,

165
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:03,440
the county as an administrative entity has set everyone's assessment. Every property in the

166
00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:09,040
county is assessed at a certain rate. They valued every property. Correct. And when when we had these

167
00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:14,240
things we're talking about called a reassessment, what the county did was re ignore their prior

168
00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:19,360
numbers and reassess every property as of the date in question. Right. The last time that happened

169
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:28,800
was 2012. Correct. Since that time, if nobody sold or purchased the property or if nobody

170
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:33,120
did extensive work that required submitting building permits on the property, it is

171
00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:41,280
pretty unlikely that the school districts have ever tried to fix that number. OK, let me go back

172
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:48,880
further. Why do we have an appeals process at all? When you pay your income tax, nobody you might

173
00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:56,880
get audited or something like that. But nobody ever has to decide how much the seventy thousand

174
00:13:56,880 --> 00:14:02,560
dollars you made last year is worth. What you made is declared in a W-2 or whatever. It's easy to

175
00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:06,880
identify how much you made. But with a property, you can't do that. Right. With a property, if the

176
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:11,600
county is going to tax you a percentage of your property value, they have to decide what your

177
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:18,400
property value is. It's very subjective. And the county makes its own determination. And those

178
00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:23,280
determinations can be wildly off base. After each of these reassessments, the first thing that

179
00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,760
happens for the first couple of years is everyone fights over those new numbers and tries to get

180
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:34,720
them to settle into a place. What's funny, Billy, is in 2012 when they reassessed the 580,000

181
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:40,400
properties, there was a hundred thousand appeals filed that these assessments were inaccurate,

182
00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:47,440
but they were all owner appeals. There wasn't one single time the school district filed an appeal

183
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:57,440
in a reassessment. That can't be right. So the baseline appeal process here is the county sets

184
00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:03,280
a number which they have methodologies and approaches for. But once that number exists,

185
00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:09,600
the property owner and the other taxing bodies, the school district and the municipality,

186
00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:15,200
all have the right to argue to the county and then eventually to the court of common pleas.

187
00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:20,320
That number is wrong. That's what we're going to talk about the process on the tax appeals for

188
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:26,880
dummies, right? And you need to have that process of some kind. You need to be able to appeal

189
00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:31,520
because if the county gets your tax number wrong, you can't just be stuck with the county

190
00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:36,480
thinking your house is worth a million dollars when your house is worth $250,000. There has to

191
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:42,480
be some mechanism in place to challenge and change those numbers as property values change. And so

192
00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:49,520
what you have after mastery assessments is an appeals process that goes one property at a time.

193
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:55,040
An owner can file an appeal any year they want or the taxing body can file an appeal any year they

194
00:15:55,040 --> 00:16:01,680
want. But the way the actual practice works for these taxing bodies and by taxing bodies right

195
00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:05,200
now we exclusively mean the school districts. Not necessarily, but okay.

196
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:11,600
For the purpose of filing appeals, right? For a while the city of Pittsburgh filed its own appeals.

197
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,440
Right now all of the appeals being filed are filed by school districts and the municipality

198
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:19,760
is an interested party, but they're just kind of riding in on the coattails of the school districts

199
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:24,160
in all these appeals. Yeah. I mean, it's hard, you know, the whole tax appeal, even talking about it,

200
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:31,920
right? There's so much in the weeds that we might think property owners understand and they really

201
00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:36,640
don't. And it's such a topic where when you don't understand something, you just sort of shut off

202
00:16:36,640 --> 00:16:41,440
where you're afraid to learn something new, but it's quite simple. It is quite simple. The higher

203
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:46,000
your property value, the more you're paying in property taxes, right? And if you can keep that

204
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:52,560
value down, you pay less in property taxes. So who right now in the current system, as it is,

205
00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:58,960
who are the school districts appealing? Anybody who recently bought and as property values obviously

206
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:04,400
have gone up since the pandemic, they're getting appealed. All right. We agreed the system is

207
00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:14,560
fundamentally flawed, right? Let's bring in Nicole first, because she's handling, she's defending

208
00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:21,120
hundreds of property owners this year who are experiencing the pain of being appealed, right?

209
00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:24,720
And I don't think you've ever been appealed. Have you ever been appealed personally? Yeah.

210
00:17:25,840 --> 00:17:32,320
I did not like it. I felt a little violated. I eventually got them to dismiss the appeal in my case.

211
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:39,680
Oh, you did? Yeah. Did Nicole handle that for you? I handled, yeah, no, she did.

212
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:46,000
Of course, I wouldn't hire anyone else to do that. No, no, no, no. Everybody likes her.

213
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:50,640
You know, when I used to try to settle these cases, it was not always good. I mean,

214
00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:56,960
I'm not saying I can't do it, but as the years rolled on and I aged, I think it changed. I think

215
00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:02,960
I was softer as a younger man, Bill. I don't know. Well, I do know that when I go in, well,

216
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:08,720
can I use this as therapy? Can we do therapy while we talk about tax appeals? I mean, yes,

217
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:14,320
yes, we can. We can always cut it out later. I mean, okay. No, no, we should not cut it out

218
00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:21,440
later. We should air this. All right. So I want to introduce Nicole Haltman-Amec. And the great

219
00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:25,680
thing about our law firm, Flaherty Farto, nobody has ever worked anywhere else. I mean, it sounds

220
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:30,240
kind of scary when you think about it, right? Sean's been there for 30 years. I was going to say

221
00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:35,120
20 plus years. You've never worked anywhere else. Nicole's never worked anywhere else.

222
00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:38,560
The only one who worked anywhere else is Sean. And that's just because he's been practicing law

223
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:44,240
longer than the firm existed. But once we existed, no one else has ever been anywhere else.

224
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:48,240
Well, even Jacqueline, our latest attorney, who's been with us seven, eight years on it,

225
00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:54,320
she's now part of the family. She's never been anywhere else. It's a little bit unusual to have

226
00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:58,400
that level of consistency, I think, in a law firm. And you see people leaving all the time.

227
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:04,080
But well, we'll pat ourselves on the back. Maybe we'll just talk about all the good things we've

228
00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:09,360
done. How's that? Yeah. I mean, you know, I would like to do that. You know, I suddenly had it creep

229
00:19:09,360 --> 00:19:13,040
into my mind that maybe none of us have gone anywhere else because you've made us all

230
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:19,360
unemployable anywhere else. There's probably something to that. What's it about? It's about

231
00:19:19,360 --> 00:19:28,720
nothing. So let's introduce Nicole Houtman Amick. She's a tax appeal attorney in Pittsburgh.

232
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:33,760
She's Nicole told me a story and I should let her talk. But here we are. She told me a story.

233
00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,320
She's like, Yeah, Noah, you are you sent me to a tax appeal my first week, I called my mother on

234
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:44,960
the way to the hearing and was scared as can be. But since then, she's personally saved property

235
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:50,080
owners in Allegheny County. I know she's reduced property values, I would argue $100 million. I

236
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:54,720
mean, it's calculable. She's handled thousands and thousands of appeals. And she generally her

237
00:19:54,720 --> 00:20:00,400
reputation in this industry. She's so respected among the judges among the other lawyers. She's

238
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:06,240
really done a phenomenal job over the years. And I'm pleased to make her our first guest.

239
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:12,240
Welcome, Nicole. Are you there? I'm here. Nicole, how are you? Did you like your introduction?

240
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:18,000
I feel very honored to number one, be your first guest and also that I've never worked anywhere

241
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:24,960
else. That's awesome. I was kind of hoping you would, you would mute and not listen to that

242
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:29,040
introduction. So it doesn't go to your head. Also, I want to point out how weird it is to have you as

243
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:36,240
a quote unquote guest on our podcast. But this this is the this is the business we've chosen,

244
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:42,800
I suppose. So I'm happy to be here no matter what. So thanks for having me. All right. We love each

245
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:47,440
other. Hug, hug, hug. All right, great. All right. Let's talk about tax appeals, Nicole. Okay,

246
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:52,880
I do look at you as an expert in tax appeals. And what do you what is the first thing you would say

247
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:58,080
to people that are being appealed this year who get a letter in the mail that says, I represent

248
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:02,000
the school district, I am trying to raise your property taxes. What's the first thing you say to

249
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:10,640
them? Don't panic. You know, you guys have already talked about this ad nauseum. But, you know, we're

250
00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:16,720
in a weird time with the COVID market with the reassessment last happening in Allegheny County,

251
00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:23,520
10 years ago. So this year, I think more than even last year, you know, there was 4000 more appeals

252
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:29,760
filed this year than last year. So that's a sizable increase, you know, 50% increase from last year.

253
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:35,920
And the increases I'm looking at as I evaluate these cases are huge, because of the COVID market.

254
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:41,040
So a lot of people are panicking. And I understand that because there's a lot of people

255
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:51,760
looking at, you know, 5000, 10,000, $20,000 yearly tax increases. So, you know, I understand that

256
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:57,840
people are a little worried about it. But not to panic. Certainly, we look at every case individually,

257
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:02,400
but we're definitely looking at kind of a weird skewed market at this point. And I can see it in

258
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:07,680
the cases I'm evaluating is COVID helping you defend these appeals? I mean, are you able to use

259
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:16,320
as a reason to defend the appeals? Yes and no. Yes, because there's a lot of unusual buying

260
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:21,680
situations. I think that was more prevalent probably last year. But the amount of people

261
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:27,120
I talked to that said, Hey, you know, I was in France, and I bought this house, and I never

262
00:22:27,120 --> 00:22:33,680
even set foot in it until a month after I owned it. Because I couldn't get here. I was in California,

263
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:38,480
and I got a new job, but I couldn't come out here because of COVID. So I bought this house,

264
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:44,320
basically sight unseen. And you know, now there's x, y, and z issues that I didn't know, because I

265
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:50,720
literally was never here. Or relocations for work or, you know, different situations that definitely,

266
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:57,840
I think, would lead to an overpayment. Here's something else, Nicole. I'm sure Bill has

267
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:06,000
questions for you. But how often do the real estate agents tell these buyers who may be appealed

268
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,880
the reality of what's going to happen? Because when I talk to some of these property owners,

269
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:15,600
about half the time they're shocked, and about half the time they expected they were going to

270
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:22,000
be appealed. What have you come across? I'd say less than half. It seems to me that when

271
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:27,200
people know this is coming, it's either because they've already gone through this process with a

272
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:32,720
different property, or, you know, a friend or neighbor told them about the fact that this

273
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:37,520
was going to happen because they also went through this process. So even when people know about it,

274
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:43,440
it seems as though they received that tip, not even from their realtor, but from someone else.

275
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:50,080
All right. So I get appealed, Nicole, I get appealed. I'm a property owner, my taxes are going up.

276
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:56,400
How can you help me? What can you do? How is it that you can defend these appeals? Give me just

277
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:02,800
some general background. Well, every case is different, obviously. There's a lot of different

278
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:09,200
ways that these appeals can be defended. You know, a lot of these processes go through

279
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:15,440
both levels of the appeals process. So it can be a long, arduous, you know, multiple year

280
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:24,000
fight to get reductions. Do most of these appeals take multiple years? And I mean, if so, why? How

281
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:28,560
can a simple appeal valueing a property take multiple years? Does it make sense?

282
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:35,040
So yes, the cases do go through a majority of them do go through two levels of the appeals

283
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:40,160
process. So that's the B par, which is the first level of the process and the board of viewers,

284
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:44,240
which is the second level of the process, tax appeals for dummies, tax appeals for dummies,

285
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:51,280
right? And the reason it can take so long is because the board of viewers is very delayed

286
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:57,200
in scheduling hearings. COVID did not help that because the court shut down for months.

287
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:04,000
So right now I'm a pissed off property owner. Okay. My taxes are getting appealed. I'm getting

288
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:09,600
appealed. I'm getting appealed. And all I'm hearing, I'm calling you my lawyer, and all I'm hearing is

289
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:15,680
there's COVID, there's delays. I want to know as a property owner, how in the hell can you help me

290
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:22,000
stop my property taxes from going up? Otherwise I'm calling, I don't know, who can I call Bill?

291
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,880
Can I call anybody else? Ghostbusters, I believe is that.

292
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:33,040
Well, you know, I try to add probably to a fault, a very, you know, upfront and honest person. That's

293
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:37,200
just how I like to practice. And, you know, if you're a property owner that's calling me and,

294
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,440
no, I looked at your appeal, for example, which I know you can't.

295
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:44,320
Okay. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. I get a lot of money. I buy properties.

296
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,600
I get appealed. What happens? So there's some airing of grievances.

297
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:52,400
I got a lot of problems with you people. Yeah. When you call me though, I'm not telling you,

298
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:56,640
no, your taxes aren't going up because that's a lie. And if someone tells you that they're lying

299
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:04,240
to you, you know, my job is to mitigate that. You know, it's a situation where certainly your taxes

300
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,880
are going to go up. It can be a long process, but it requires some patience, which I know is difficult.

301
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:14,320
I'm not a patient person either, but you know, you need to have it because as I was saying before,

302
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:18,880
the board of viewers who schedules their own cases is, you know, a year or two delayed right now.

303
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,200
So, you know, I do have a lot of pissed off property owners calling me and saying, hey,

304
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:29,280
Nicole, you filed my appeal a year ago. What's going on? And I understand that. So, you know,

305
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,160
it's a, it's, we're trying to move them forward as quickly as possible.

306
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:39,040
Yeah. But why, if I'm, if I'm a perspective, I'm a recent home buyer and I'm getting appealed,

307
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:44,000
what can you offer me or what is it you're going to do? What advice can you give me as we walk

308
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:50,560
through this appeal on how I can defend this assessment or appeal? And you know, how successful

309
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:55,440
are you as a lawyer for the property owners versus if I tried to just go handle it myself?

310
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,520
Well, there's a lot of questions there, but I'll try to get through them. So things that you can

311
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:07,120
do that are helpful for your case. So there's a lot of different, uh, research and things that I get

312
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:12,080
prepared for evidence for these cases. So number one, you know, if you did overpay, which everyone

313
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:16,240
wants to tell me about how they overpaid because of COVID, because of whatever else I get that,

314
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:21,840
um, the better way to show that is by looking at research. So by researching, you know, say five

315
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:26,800
people on your street just bought a similar house. What did they pay for their house? Um, is it less

316
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:30,880
than what you paid? Can you show me, can you document that for me and show it to me with

317
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:36,240
actual data, which is what my job is. So I'm compiling all that information, getting all of

318
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:41,040
that together and saying, you know, four properties on the same street, identical, just sold for less.

319
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:46,800
I'm asking property owners information that they have that I don't have, um, that they have,

320
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:52,480
that would be helpful for the case. So for example, seller assist or seller credit included in the

321
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,560
purchase price. Was there a significant amount of furniture included in the purchase price?

322
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:00,960
Have any significant issues come up with the property that were not disclosed to you?

323
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,040
All right, good. Okay. So there's a bunch of things broken down there, right? But your goal

324
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:10,320
and what you're telling property owners who get appealed is that they need to prove that they

325
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:16,000
overpaid for the house. So when it says $500,000 on the deed and it's a sale recording, that's not

326
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:23,760
true. I didn't pay 500,000. I paid 460 because either there was furniture included or I was

327
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:29,040
motivated from out of town or I was in a rush or my wife wanted this and I didn't have a choice.

328
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:33,280
Is that right? I mean, let's, let's, let's think about for a moment,

329
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:40,000
the actual nature of the argument that you as a property owner are trying to make when you have

330
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:45,440
purchased a house and now you're getting appealed, right? Which is you purchased your house and the

331
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:51,680
documents you filed with Allegheny County say that you paid $500,000 for your house. And now you're

332
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:59,120
stuck going to, you know, court essentially trying to argue that, yes, I paid $500,000 for my house,

333
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:05,440
but my house is not worth $500,000. That's a difficult argument to pull off, which is,

334
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:11,600
you know, which is the problem that you're facing here. The best single piece of evidence is the

335
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:18,480
sales price. So it's not the only evidence, but the steps you're talking about now looking for

336
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:23,920
seller's assists or furniture that's included is a way to say, well, actually the purchase price

337
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:30,960
wasn't $500,000. It was 400, whatever. And once you can, Nicole, am I right? That once you can

338
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:35,760
prove that you overpaid, it can help lower the property taxes. I mean, it's that simple, right?

339
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:41,600
Correct. And again, like Bill said, it's not like I'm saying I paid a different value for the

340
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:47,680
property, but it's, it's in looking at, you know, facts outside of just looking at the purchase

341
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:53,760
price, which that's the area that I live in. Yeah. So that was my next question, Nicole, is we talked

342
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,120
already about the things that you can do to try to make the purchase price itself look like it was

343
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:07,200
lower. What evidence outside of the purchase price itself is relevant evidence or good evidence to

344
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:13,120
try to prove your case here? So as I was kind of alluding to before, I do a lot of research.

345
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:19,440
I do all the research for our cases, which is, you know, a good thing. I hear a lot of compliments

346
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:24,720
about that because a lot of other offices don't have the actual attorneys handling it. So the

347
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:29,520
benefit of that is, you know, when I am saying these, this is my evidence, these are the other

348
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:34,000
sales. I have personally looked at that. So, you know, if there's other sales on the same street,

349
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:38,480
I have that information. If there's other sales from the next street over, I have that information.

350
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,640
You know, when the school district is bringing in comparables, a lot of times it could be, you know,

351
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:48,560
sales that are three miles away that are bigger, newer, you know, they don't find tooth comb,

352
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:53,040
go through those. So that's a really important distinction that we go through at the time of the

353
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:58,320
hearing to make those, you know, differentiations between what the school district has and what we

354
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:03,120
have. Another thing that I'll do, this is mostly at the board of viewers at the second level, but

355
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,120
say your neighbor went through the appeals process three years ago, what did they settle their case

356
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:11,600
for? You know, if there's any helpful information that's out there, I'm going to find it.

357
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:17,680
That's the key, Nicole. I mean, I really think the reason you've been so successful in defending

358
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:24,400
these and the key, the absolute answer to defending a school district tax appeal is to outwork and out

359
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:29,920
research the school districts because the school districts will file 2000 appeals and they'll have

360
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:36,000
an administrative assistant do their, do their research. And then will, and I think this is

361
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,920
your magic key or whatever the better phrase is, William, you helped me on that, but

362
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,400
you're actually doing the research, you're outworking them, you're able to cross examine

363
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:50,800
their evidence. Is there a risk? And maybe you can talk a little bit about it briefly

364
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:56,800
of property owners actually attending their own hearing. You've talked about how this is a multi

365
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,800
hearing process. There's two different hearings over a long time. What's the risk? Just touch

366
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,920
base briefly on the risk if a property owner attends the first hearing on their own.

367
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:14,240
So this is a question I get a lot asked a lot. If a property owner attends a hearing on,

368
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:19,120
on their own, they can be cross examined by the school district attorney representative,

369
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:24,320
whoever's there. That can be a problem for them for a couple of reasons. Number one,

370
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:29,280
you know, if they ask you a question and you give an answer, that's not helpful for your case,

371
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:33,520
that doesn't only impact the hearing you're at, but that stays with your file for the rest of

372
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:38,240
the time that your property is under appeal. So I've had situations where a property owner attends

373
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:43,760
at the first level, they get an unfavorable decision. We help them with a second level appeal.

374
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,920
And I have an attorney for the school district saying, Hey, Nicole, the property owner at the

375
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:55,200
first level told me this. And it's information that I am surprised by. I didn't know they had it.

376
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:00,320
And that can be information like appraisals for the property that were, you know, even above the

377
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:04,400
purchase price, which that happens sometimes. Yeah. What you've done to the property. Hey,

378
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:08,800
when you're under oath at these hearings and you know, there's going to be an appeal

379
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,440
and the school district lawyer is asking you, so what was the mortgage? Did you have an appraisal?

380
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:18,320
What have you done to the property? It hurts you ultimately in the appeals process. You agree?

381
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:24,000
Correct. And that's, that was going to be my next point is say you've put $50,000 in a property,

382
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,520
you know, if they ask you a question, certainly you should always answer truthfully, but that

383
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:32,800
information is not going to help you because then the school district can say, Hey, they bought the

384
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:39,200
property for 400, they put 50,000 into it. It's worth 450. So now you're even in a worse situation

385
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,600
than you were in before. And again, not only are they going to use that against you at that moment,

386
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:49,040
but they're going to use it against me or you or whoever later in the appeals process as well.

387
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:55,840
Yeah. It's a problem. I think this is a place where property owners, but just using their own

388
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:00,240
common sense, think of that volunteering that information is going to help when in fact it

389
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,120
hurts, right? Because in their head, their mindset is I overpaid for this house. And so how do you

390
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:10,880
prove you overpaid for the house? Well, I paid $400,000 for the house. And then I had to put,

391
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:17,920
you know, $30,000 of work into the backyard. Well, that doesn't show that you paid too much

392
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:23,120
when you bought it. What that becomes evidence of is the house is now worth 30,000 more than when

393
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:27,200
you did buy it. Yeah, that's good, Bill. I mean, there's so many times that they say the wrong

394
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:32,160
things and that logic, what you're saying there is, well, I had to fix this and I had to fix this.

395
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:37,360
Now you just increased it and raised your property taxes, pal. So not very bright.

396
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:42,880
It's tricky, right? Like it makes sense why you think that will help you when what your thought

397
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:49,440
process is, is trying to prove that your house that you overpaid. But what you're really trying

398
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:55,360
to prove ultimately is what your house, what your property is worth and what you paid is good

399
00:34:55,360 --> 00:35:02,080
evidence of that. But if you if in your head, your mindset is I'm arguing about what the property is

400
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:06,640
worth, then you'll see, oh, wait, telling someone that I just put $50,000 into it is not going to

401
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:10,960
help me. Yeah, I know we're a little deep into this, right? And it's obvious we could talk about

402
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:16,240
tax appeals, maybe for for hours, like literally hours. Have we not already? Yeah, but here's the

403
00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:19,760
thing about the school district appeals. And especially if you got appealed, you know, the

404
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:24,480
school district has the burden of proof, right? And they're going to come in and they're going to

405
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:32,960
say, Nicole, you paid $500,000. But the law, which you know, which Nicole does a great job of providing

406
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:38,000
and explaining to the hearing officers as well. One sale does not make a market. And in terms

407
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:43,120
to value a property, you have to use what's called a comparable sales approach. And if the school

408
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:48,160
district is having administrative assistants find their sales, and we have Nicole, who has the top

409
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:53,120
of the line technology and database that we've built over the last 15 years, we find the best

410
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:59,520
sales where it gives us a strategic advantage. Agreed, Nicole? I'll even say it's not even at

411
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:05,280
this point, because we're, you know, so far away from the base year and the market is so crazy.

412
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:10,320
It's not even usually. And obviously, every case is different. But it's not even usually a cherry

413
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:16,080
picking situation. It's literally looking at all the other sales, for example, on the same street,

414
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:24,560
all the other sales, but in the same neighborhood. These assessments are really devastating lower

415
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:30,960
income neighborhoods, where the millage rates, which we can talk about, but the rate of taxes

416
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:36,160
that they're given to the people are through the roof. Well, I think the millage rates is an

417
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:41,120
interesting topic, because when you look around Allegheny County, and look at the highest millage

418
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:47,440
rates in the county, they're in lower income parts of the county in Wilkinsburg, Woodland Hills,

419
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:54,880
Brentwood, you know, those people in those areas, if they have $100,000 house, are paying $5,000 a

420
00:36:54,880 --> 00:37:00,400
year in property taxes. That's crazy. It's crazy. And just for some perspective, if you own a house

421
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:06,880
in North Allegheny, you'll pay about $2,200 for that same $100,000 house. So if you live in a

422
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:13,520
poor neighborhood, your taxes are twice what some of the suburbs are. That sounds fair to me, right?

423
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,280
Right. And that's, I mean, there's a lot of things that go into millage rates, which we don't have

424
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:22,000
time to talk about right now. But that, you know, when I look at those cases, and I look at people

425
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:28,080
that live in, you know, modest houses, I mean, I look at the taxes on those houses, and they're

426
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:34,400
the same as, as you said, no much larger houses, you know, a relatively modest home, $150,000,

427
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:42,480
$200,000 home. If you tax that person at $10,000 a year, you know, someone in that situation, that

428
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,920
is an untenable, unaffordable tax bill. And especially when people don't know what's coming,

429
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:52,480
you know, it's crushing. Yeah, two things. And then we'll sort of wrap this up. And we'll bring

430
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:57,200
this bring this home. But you know, when you think about it, a person's home is their most valuable

431
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:04,400
asset, right? It's most for most people, it's the it's the most expensive thing they will own. And

432
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:09,600
what Allegheny County does is they tax it twice as high as everywhere else, which depreciates

433
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:16,880
the most best asset of our life, right? And if what they did, the solution, I really think is

434
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:22,400
raising the income tax and raising the sales tax, you can select how your tax, but if they cut

435
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:29,200
the property tax values on our homes, it actually increases everybody's net worth, everybody gets

436
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:35,520
richer. And the system we have right now, it's definitely broken. Nicole, do you think a

437
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:40,080
reassessment and bill to, you know, do you think a reassessment if they finally ordered another one

438
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:45,840
10 years later would help fix this and why? Absolutely. I think we need a reassessment

439
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:51,040
desperately. I think we need regular reassessments, because right now, our system

440
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:55,840
um, crushes people that just buy properties, and it's only going to continue getting worse.

441
00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:00,720
And the only way to fix that is by just regularly taking a look at all the values,

442
00:39:00,720 --> 00:39:04,800
giving people new values, because even when we do a reassessment now, because it's been 10 years

443
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:10,560
since the last one, you know, grandma and grandpa living in Lawrenceville that bought their property

444
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:14,800
40 years ago, next to all these properties that just flipped, they're going to get a higher tax

445
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:21,280
bill. Lawrenceville is crazy right now too. I mean, 50,000 and 400,000. Right? I mean,

446
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:25,120
that's just an example of an area that the values have appreciated so much. But the way we could

447
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:29,280
have avoided doing that was doing a regular reassessment. So people don't get hit all at one

448
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:34,800
time by much higher values on properties. So I think we need to start sooner than later. I think

449
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:40,400
we need to do them regularly. And as you touched on before, you know, a reassessment, people get

450
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:46,000
scared about property taxes going up. That's not true. Many people's property taxes would actually

451
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:52,080
go down. And I think if we do it regularly, we could really kind of bring these massive increases

452
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:56,960
to a stop and just kind of be fair to everyone, including people that just buy properties, people

453
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,880
that have been in properties. I think it's a much fairer system for everyone. Yeah. Every year we do

454
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:07,280
the status quo. I think the worse it gets to. Well, look, I mean, obviously politicians voting

455
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:12,720
through a reassessment is a deeply unpopular act because everyone thinks and often in the short

456
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:18,640
term, everyone's taxes do go up while we try to have water find its level again, which is why

457
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,480
generally the way that reassessments in Allegheny County have been happening is when the courts

458
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:27,600
force us to, because our system gets so out of whack that the court decides it's now unconstitutional

459
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:32,160
and you got to do something different. That in and of itself is a broken system. Right? We've got

460
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:38,880
a county where we have decided that we will do reassessments. Well, we haven't decided it,

461
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,640
but we only do reassessments when a court forces us to, when it gets so out of whack.

462
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:47,120
But you had said earlier, Noah, there are winners and losers. And I think that's in the current

463
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:51,600
system, that's true. And in any system you pick, you're going to be able to figure out who wins and

464
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:58,240
loses. Right now in the current system, the losers are the people who are in areas where the

465
00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:03,600
property values are not appreciating, where the property values are flat or even decreasing.

466
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:09,840
Those people are overpaying their taxes and their assessments relative to the value of their

467
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:15,280
property. And the other losers are people who are purchasing new homes. If you're purchasing

468
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,520
property, you're going to be paying higher taxes than your neighbor who's in an identical house.

469
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:24,160
So right now, the two sets of people who are hit the hardest by this current broken system

470
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:29,600
are people in low income, non-appreciating neighborhoods and people who are purchasing new

471
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:37,360
homes. If what we do is have a mass reassessment, obviously in the short term, there's kind of chaos

472
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:42,800
because some of the, you know, 10% of the numbers are just going to be terrible numbers that have

473
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:49,520
to then get fixed through the appeals process. But the other losers in a reassessment situation

474
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:54,800
are going to be the people Nicole talked about. If you have owned property for a long time in an

475
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:59,680
area that's appreciating in these gentrifying neighborhoods that we have right now, those

476
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:06,480
people's property value is going up. They're not doing anything different, but the neighborhoods,

477
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:12,160
that property values you're appreciating, when that adjusts, which, you know, conceptually,

478
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:18,320
it in theory should, but the end result of that is these people's tax bill is going to go so high,

479
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,880
they're going to have to sell their property. They're not going to be able to pay that bill.

480
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:29,040
I think that Philadelphia, county, city, whatever, it's all kind of the same government over there,

481
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:35,600
has a specific program in place that I don't know if it's been challenged and upheld in courts,

482
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:41,760
or not yet, but I'm pretty sure it exists, that allows people who have lived for a long time

483
00:42:42,720 --> 00:42:47,280
in an area where the property value is going up, gives them an exception to what our other

484
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:52,320
wise, the property tax rules, it cuts them some kind of break. The courts at least have not yet

485
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:58,240
found that that violates the uniformity clause and might be a good way to try to protect the people

486
00:42:58,240 --> 00:43:02,080
who are most likely to be harmed by the next reassessment whenever it happens.

487
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:07,120
Listen, that's a great idea. I mean, there are states out there that will look at senior citizens

488
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,560
and say, we're not going to tax them the same way, right? I mean, you can't because you're

489
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:17,200
going to tax them out of their house as we go through. And like, state law, you know,

490
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:24,480
has the courts have told us that you're not allowed to have different tax rates on commercial and

491
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:29,040
residential properties. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't take the use of the property and say,

492
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:34,320
well, we're going to tax the commercial properties at a higher millage rate than we're going to tax

493
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:40,880
the residential properties because that's considered to violate the uniformity clause.

494
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:46,400
But in all the state, in all the counties, and certainly in Allegheny County, you have the

495
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:52,720
homestead exemption, which does at least cut a, you know, a small break that is specifically and

496
00:43:52,720 --> 00:44:00,800
exclusively given to owner occupied residential properties, right? It's, it's kind of a drop in

497
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,360
the bucket compared to how much the tax burden actually is. But it is one place where we've

498
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:12,960
already seen the, our legislators kind of carve out a way to protect residential property owners

499
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:14,960
in a way that it doesn't necessarily protect commercial ones.

500
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,760
All right. All right. Look, we could talk about this for a long time. Let's wrap up. Let's,

501
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:24,640
let's summarize a little bit what we've discovered today. We, Nicole, we all agree there's a

502
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:32,240
fundamentally flawed tax appeal system, correct? Yes. It's broken. Very broken. It's broken because

503
00:44:32,240 --> 00:44:37,120
we haven't, we need to do periodic reassessments, which will be more fair for everybody. And for

504
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:42,560
those people who are being appealed and Nicole, our intent is to do a separate, more defined,

505
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:50,400
here's exactly how you defend a tax appeal and some hints and tips and temps. I like hints and

506
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:57,280
temps. Yeah. Well, you know what they say, timp it ain't easy. But for those people, be careful

507
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:03,840
what you say at the hearing, prove that you overpaid for the property, outwork, out research,

508
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:11,120
the school district attorneys. Oh, you know, when we did talk about one sale does not make a market,

509
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:16,400
they have the burden of proof, right? What did I miss? I'm smarter than bill.

510
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,880
You saved it for a good one. I think that's, I think you hit on the main points now.

511
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:28,960
I mean, we'll see, we'll see what happens. I mean, I can't, there has to be a reassessment.

512
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:34,320
And I think it's going to be more chaos and fodder for talk, but the people that have been appealed,

513
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:41,360
you should fight these. We've seen a lot of success in mitigating the property tax increases. And,

514
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,520
you know, if somebody can prove to me that this system works, I would love to listen to it because

515
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:51,360
I'm just, I'm selling, I'm not buying it. Well, bill, I told Noah, I had a dream the other night

516
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:55,920
that some politician was telling me that a reassessment was happening next year.

517
00:45:56,720 --> 00:46:02,480
Like that's how entrenched in this whole thing and devoted I am to this reassessment notion. So

518
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:07,520
that's where my head's at right now. I am desperately sorry. This is what your dream

519
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:13,680
life is. I want my lawyer to dream about tax appeals. That's what I want. I probably should

520
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:19,040
be more embarrassed of that than I am, but here we are. Hey, you know what though? I will, I will

521
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:23,840
end with this too. You know, the point, I'm not trying to get clients. That's fine. We,

522
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,080
we get enough clients, our reputation, what we've done for past clients. It's great. I mean,

523
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:33,200
I'm trying to get clients. I'm not, I don't, when I got into this business and I've done a lot of

524
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:40,080
different areas of law, but nothing people are more scared when they get notice of a tax appeal

525
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:44,240
and they flip out because now you're talking about their monthly income. You're talking about their

526
00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:49,280
monthly expenses and it is personal in nature. The satisfaction and the relationships I built

527
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,440
with these people, cause I'm walking them through one of this toughest times in their life. Nicole,

528
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,760
you see this all the time, right? I mean, some of the panic by these people, you're affecting their

529
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:04,720
checkbook. This is real. Absolutely. It's a very emotional thing. And I understand that. And I just

530
00:47:04,720 --> 00:47:09,920
went through the appeal on my own property. So I get that. And it's sometimes good to remind myself,

531
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:14,640
you know, how much this can impact people. I mean, I have people crying, you know, I,

532
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:20,400
I deal with that almost every day. So who'd you hire? Nicole? I'm sorry. Who'd you hire?

533
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:28,080
I know a good tax appeal attorney. I handled it myself, obviously, but you know, even in doing

534
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:32,720
that, it's one of those things where, you know, the amount of research and time and energy I put

535
00:47:32,720 --> 00:47:37,040
into it, it's a good reminder that, you know, everyone deserves to have the same. Yeah. Whether

536
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,960
you use us or not, what I will say is don't let them raise your property taxes without a fight.

537
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:45,200
It just doesn't make any sense. I mean, you're talking about, and if it's, and if it's,

538
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:50,400
if it sticks like it has in the 10 years, this could be 10 years of savings. You know, we,

539
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:54,320
you save somebody 3000 a year. You really save them 30 grand. You save them 10 grand a year.

540
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:58,880
You're saving them a hundred thousand dollars. Any final thoughts, Nicole? We really appreciate

541
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:04,560
you coming on today. No, that's it. Thanks guys for having me. Glad to be your guest. I'm honored.

542
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:10,640
You're the best. We really appreciate everything you do. You're guests in my corn. Yeah. No idea

543
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:16,640
what you're doing there. That's a field of dreams. I doubt that's in field of dreams, but your guests

544
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:21,520
in my corn is definitely in. Yeah. I disagree. I object, but we can, we can hash it out another day.

545
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:29,440
You're out of order. That should about do it for this episode of I strenuously object. Hopefully

546
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:33,680
you learned something or had a few laughs at least. If so, please subscribe, rate and review us,

547
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:38,720
tell your friends, or if we did a bad job, your enemies to check us out. It's the only way that

548
00:48:38,720 --> 00:48:44,800
this podcast can grow. If you have questions for our eventual mailing it in segment or other

549
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:51,600
feedback for the podcast, email the podcast directly at iobject at pghfirm.com. Noah,

550
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:57,120
anything from you? Yep. For the most helpful information on property tax appeals on the web,

551
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:03,920
on the internet, and the worldwide web, visit pghfirm.com and visit our tax appeal section,

552
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:08,480
which includes the best advice for defending school district tax appeals, how to lower commercial

553
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:16,080
properties, and how to lower your property taxes in general. pghfirm.com. Until next time, some

554
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:24,240
parting legal advice. You never, never leave your wingman. Noah, are we adjourned? We are adjourned.

555
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:30,320
Have a great day. We want to hear from you, our listeners. You can email us your questions,

556
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:38,400
comments, and suggestions for future episodes at iobject at pghfirm.com, or DM us on Instagram,

557
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:45,680
and Facebook. Follow us at Flaherty Fartdo on Instagram, or Falherty Fardo Rogel and Amick on Facebook.

‍