Yes. We added square footage and our taxes went up accordingly. It's all part of what you have to consider before moving forward with the work. How the calculations themselves work depends on where you live.

Yes, the taxes go up in my area when you pull a permit.

Of course! We had the county hounding us and wanting to know if the addition was being used...No, we were doing much ourselves and it took a couple of years...they get you coming and going...

Yes every renovation has a permit pulled so taxes always increased ...

When you do it yourself, you can skip pulling of permits and keep your taxes from increasing.

@mcgovtheory only issue with that is when you go to sell the house ...

@Karin K, what happens when you go to sell the house?

In my town, taxes depend on a small set of factors:

1 - Size of home (we renovated existing sq footage, adding on would have triggered more taxes)

2 - Age of home (the older it is, the steeper the discount, my house is 50+ so my assessed value is 20% less than a new home)

3 - Condition of home (3 categories are roughly Luxury Finishes (not us), Mid Range (hardwood floors, etc), or below average)

So for us, the renovations have not increased our taxes but probably prevented us from slipping into "below average" for condition score. A lot of our assessed value is the land value as well, and oddly they don't consider decks and patios in the calculation. HTH.

@ivan the buyers pull records for work at your building sept - if work doesn’t match permits they can insist you pull permits and many times a mortgage company will not give a mortgage

In our county the tax assessors are only allowed inside your home if invited. You can refuse to let them in. All they can do at assessment time is guess at the # of rooms in your house. So you can do a DIY reno and nobody is the wiser. It is done all the time. But if you are adding additions or decks then yes you better get a permit or they could have you remove it, plus pay a fine if a neighbor squeals. Which one always does.

In our small city, the assessment would only change if the square footage increased. In our previous home we did a whole first floor reno which involved removing a wall, moving plumbing and adding electrical. Our assessment remained the same.

It took them 3 years to come out and reassess our home after our restoration. Needless to say, we were a bit surprised to hear from them. We didn't realize this was a thing. They just came last week, so I don't know how it will affect things. We added a bathroom and A/C, but lost a bedroom. Other finishes remained about the same.

We added a new garage at the same time (tore down a 100 year old single car and put up a dble car, but in the same style to match our 100 yr old house). We did pull permits for this, but he looked out the window and said, "And you still have a garage". I didn't lie, but I also didn't respond.

It takes about a year in our town, but yes, they do re-assess based on the renovations. We are expecting an uptick once our kitchen is complete :(

Can I include the renovation price in selling price? I made the renovation but now I have to sell the house, so could I include it's price?

The house will sell for what it's worth to the buyer. How much your renovation actually cost doesn't matter; what matters is the value it added to the total house package, which may well be less than what it cost you to do.

Victor Kraft, why not? If your property is at least 5 years old then you can do it otherwise renovation you did will attract the attention of buyers if the price will remain the same

The main idea is that you will have to pay a bigger tax because the house price will grow once the renovation process will end

Agree! We did a major reno/addition and our taxes went up accordingly, especially because we added a bathroom and a bedroom and a bigger garage. Square footage, size of garage, and number of bedrooms and bathrooms are all part of the tax calculation (among other things like age of home, size of lot, school district, etc.)