Rental Property Taxes Unusually High

[Jordan L.]

Hi all,

I purchased my first rental property in Kershaw County, South Carolina in Feb 2014. The state's property tax rate is 4% for owner-occupied homes, and 6% for NOO. My property would appraise around $175k.

My question is... when it was an REO the bank paid its property tax at $1179/yr (Jan 2014). I received my property tax bill in Jan 2015 and my taxes due were $3750. I paid the bill and haven't yet contested the amount, but this seems very, very high. I called the county assessor's office and explained that I know other landlords locally who pay a far lower percentage of assessed value than what I was charged. The secretary was quite rude and more concerned with finding out my associates' information so that she could see that they weren't being undercharged.

   This being said, I am an out-of-state owner.  I live in CA, and have my property tax statement mailed to my home address here.  What can I do, if anything, outside of contesting the assessed value?  What are my rights?  I know that I'm able to have the property re-appraised, and that the assessor's valuation was a little bit high at $199k.  It seems that even if it were assessed at $175k, that I would be overpaying.  I'm told that due to the fact that Kershaw County is a small, rural county in SC that I may not be able to do much, and that they see an out-of-state owner (especially from NY, or CA, etc.) as a gold mine and I should just expect to be price-gouged.   

Thank you all in advance for your knowledge and time,

Jordan