Question for the Community: Parcels & Property Taxes

[Andrew West]

Hi BP friends!

Would love to get some thoughts from anyone out there with property parcel & tax experience.

We're about to close on a duplex in Harper Woods, MI and we learned late in the process that the duplex actually sits on two parcels of land, so our purchase agreement was updated to reflect this. The dwelling itself actually straddles the property line (I guess this is fairly common in the area), so from what I've been able to gather this actually means we pay TWICE the property taxes. We pay taxes on both parcels and they're each assessed based on the value of the FULL property...Yikes!

This seems silly, but luckily isn't a deal-breaker for our cash flow analysis and it's still a good deal, so we're moving forward. 

However, I'm curious if anyone out there has experience with this and knows of any solutions to improve the property tax situation moving forward? (I'm wondering if combining the parcels is an option, or perhaps getting them to reassess property taxes based on half the property value since it straddles the line).

Constantly learning over here and would appreciate any knowledge or experience you have. Thanks!