Santa Clara County Assessor

Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone, on the county’s assessment rolls:

1. Beware of scams, especially solicitations from firms offering to provide homeowners property assessment information for a fee.

“There’s no reason to pay for something that they will get from us for free,” Stone said.

2. Don’t panic if you don’t receive your notification cards in May.

Stone is one of 10 county assessors in the state who sends out assessment notification cards to home owners early in the year. He explained this year, due to his office’s heavy workload; homeowners will not be receiving their notification cards until the last week in June, giving them less time to request a second review before the deadline of Aug. 15. Homeowners have between July 2 and September 15 to formally file an appeal.

3. The assessment process begins January 1 of each year.

Stone said homeowners should be aware that the market value of a property has to drop below the assessed value before they can seek a property assessment reduction, and the time to take note of comps begins from the lien or valuation date, which is January 1.

4. The assessor is not the tax collector. Even if you expect an adjustment in your property taxes, you need to pay your taxes on time, or you will be subject to a penalty if you don’t.

In line with Proposition 8, Stone said his office last year proactively reduced the assessed value of a total of 46,000 properties in the county, and as a result, the total reduction in assessed value took $5.3 billion off the county’s assessment rolls.

Proposition 8 requires the assessor to take into account any factor causing a decline in value of a property, and consequently reduce a property’s value. When and if the market value of the previously reduced assessment increases above its Proposition 13 factored base year value, the assessor will once again enroll its Proposition 13 factored base year value. Stone said he doesn’t expect this to happen in 2009. In fact, he expects more reductions this year.

“I expect we’ll double the number of properties in Prop. 8 status to about 80,000, which could take between $8 to $10 billion dollars off the rolls,” he said.

The county assessor said until recently, the county’s high-end markets of Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Saratoga and South Sunnyvale have held up in value because these are more established areas with excellent school districts, fewer condominiums, less new construction and fewer first-time home buyers.

“These higher end areas with excellent demand have reasonably weathered well until lately,” Stone said.

On the other hand, the housing markets in Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Milpitas, East San Jose, and Central San Jose continue to be “upside down.”  Last year, almost 25 percent of condos and townhomes in the county, many located in these neighborhoods, were assessed below the purchase price. Stone expects that number to increase this year.

Despite the reduction in valuations, Stone said he believes Santa Clara County will still be among the top 10 in the state in assessment roll growth, which he projects will be at just 1-2 percent.

“Our assessment roll will not go negative, but we are going to see public services all over, in the county and cities, go down,” Stone said.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 6:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.