Small, very small victory- City Taxes, could I've done more

[M Marie M.]

Well I managed to get the value down by 10,000. I didn't pay anyone, I did it myself. It cost me a morning of my time, and some photocopies.

I was aiming for knocking 30,000 off the assessed value to get a break on the high city taxes. Well at least it wasn't completely ignored.

I created a packet showing photos and diagrams and comparisons to the neighboring houses and took them down to 6 St. Paul St on the date I was told to meet in person. When I filled out the petition to review the real property I asked for an in person interview.

I had two arguments. One was the last few sales prices, which I don't think worked. The assessor pointed out they were all auction prices. The other was square footage. What I measured was drastically different than what was listed in SDAT. The city came out and remeasured the exterior. Their measurements are a tad higher than mine, but less than what the state said they were before. Unfortunately, fortunately, the land is the same size as the neighboring houses, so I decided not to challenge its value.

The result, according to my math, is my taxes aren't going up as scheduled. yay.

But I do wonder was there anything more I could have done?