chapnc ... I debated replying but thought you may have misunderstood ... we do pay property taxes now on the land. As I said, it's standard for our area that the house is not taxed till you have a certificate of occupancy. You are taxed only on the land until the house receives it CO. It may be different in your area but I've never heard anyone say they were taxed on the value of a home while it is still under construction. Our home does have value but not the same value as it will when it's complete. We are being assessed at what they appraise the completed house will be and we have just started on the interior (and I'm still patiently waiting for a toilet LOL). I think we cover our fair share of city/county services now as we do pay property taxes now along with state and local taxes. Our area does not have a city/county police department ... we rely on the state police about 45 minutes away. Our local fire company is all volunteer, self-supporting, and we donate yearly. I sure that everyone pays property taxes on the land but would be interested in knowing if anyone else has had to pay property taxes on their home while still under construction.

"Does it annoy those who don't have children to pay large school taxes?" Nope! People paid to put my kids through school, Actually, people paid to put ME through school! My kids are in private schools, so I'm paying to put them through (oops, no, forgot, this year DD is in public). But I have never minded the *concept* of paying for public education, bcs someone did it for me. Lots of someone's who had no children, even. And bcs as Steve & others point out, I benefit from a well-educated populace. In many ways. And I also live in NYC, where we waste--er, spend--$12,000 per pupil. THAT annoys me. I'm happy to pay--thrilled to pay, in fact. But I want the kids in my city to get a decent education, and I don't want to be fleeced. "Fire the administrators"--maybe (in NYC, it's "fire the janitors"). But a GOOD administrator will *make* a school. I know this, from having seen mediocre administrators, and mediocre and good bosses. The problem is, it's hard to find, and hard to BE, a good administrator.

I also live in MD. I received my assessment last year, appealed it and had the assessment reduced. I'm in a 37 year old rancher, with good schools, and my neighborhood is not in decline. You should file an appeal. The instructions for doing so are included with you assessment notice. I found it to be a very informal and non-intimidating process. I never even brought up the real estate market. I basically explained why I felt my house wasn't worth what it was assessed at. I even had pictures of all the things that are wrong with my house, and I wasn't even asked to show them. I don't see what the Homestead Tax Credit has to do with anything. They say your house is worth a certain amount and you don't agree, period. Sounds to me like they might be trying to discourage people from appealing to avoid the extra work. You don't have to pay anybody for information. Whatever you need is publicly available to you for free, and a lot of useful information is on the internet. Here is a link that might be useful: MD Real Property Data Search

Timely subject. Our neighborhood just received our property tax assessments for 2016, payable in 2017. Our property taxes have gone up 45%. Our home values have not. We had a refi appraisal within the last year & our home value was less than the current property taxes, prior to this increase. A 45% increase & our taxes are already high. Illinois is number 50, of 50 states, in public pension debt. In the recent past, the federal government has given Illinois stimulus money for education. The majority of that money has NOT gone to schools & students - it has paid for pension debt. We're going to need another bailout from the states that have been fiscally responsible. Edit: We will be appealing - we do every year. The first time we used an attorney, whose fee was 50% of of the tax savings. Then we started doing it ourselves. We have the choice to appeal based on "uniformity" or "overvaluation." "Uniformity" involves collecting & submitting comps of other comparable homes. "Overvaluation" is submitting a home appraisal with a date of Jan 1, 2016 so we get tax credit for the entire year. We've had better results with the home appraisal, overvaluation method. Everyone in our neighborhood's home value has jumped up by between $200,000 - $400,000, according to the taxing authority. I'd have no problem with it if our home value had truly increased, but it hasn't.