[Anon]

Being a La Port County citizen I have concerns about our current tax situation.
How long will it take to get our taxes in order?? The way it's going now our taxes will not be right until 2014. We have two options eithier we keep reassessing and basing taxes on old figures or we scrape everything and start fresh. Our reassessment is being done by thrid party known as the Taylor Group. This company was commissioned to reassess our property as tax payers. In the contract the reassessment was estimated at one million dollars for one year. However,that contract is getting close to an end and no progress has been made. This brings up many issues; first of all what are our county assessors doing? ? Secondly, why is the county wasting money on companies who can not do their job. As mentioned in the beginning, as a property owner our current tax situation affect me on many levels because the taxes follow the property not to person. So, under our current situation if you build a house taxes will not catch up to you until 2014 and even then you won't pay any back taxes. Additional, if you bought a house in 2009 then you have to pay all taxes because our current taxes are based on 2007 numbers. For instances, if I bought a house in 2009 I have pay taxes for the people that use to live there from the years of 2007 moving forward. How fair is that? Think about it how many properties have exchanged hands will our assessors, or third party companies, be able to track down all these and correctly establish an accurate and fair tax? I think not! My vote is scrap the current system, fire the Taylor Group, and make our county employees work instead of collecting a.pay check.

[Southsider2k12]

The problem if the system were made to follow the person, the taxes would be unenforceable if people moved, because they lose the ability to seize the property.

[Michelle]

I bought a house during this time period, and the sellers gave a certain amount of money (the mortgage company's calculations were based on the provisional tax bills, I think) that was held in the escrow account for the back taxes. So far it's worked out perfectly. I'm taking on the slight risk that the provisional bills were way lower than the final payment, but it's unlikely.

My guess would be that most people buying in this time period made similar arrangements, so the buyer won't end up paying out for the years they didn't live in the house. It's these kinds of situations where having a competent real estate broker is really handy.

[Ang]

My deal is similar to Michelle's. I bought my house in 2011 and am only responsible for taxes started the day I closed on my house, while the seller has money in an escrow account to pay for any back taxes. If you're unsure you can check with the county assessors office