Sorry it’s a bit fuzzy I was driving at the time. Numerous unregistered vehicles in various states of disrepair. Repairing vehicles other than their own in garage. A couple cars have for sale signs in windows. The back yard is not much better.
These people have a license to steal, in other parts of town code enforcement would take them to court and have them comply with zoning violation and code issues.
My point is should I have to pay the same amount of taxes as citizens that are protected from having this next to them.
Replies
No - Check the web site for your county tax appraiser. They should have forms for requesting a re-evaluation of your property value for extenuating circumstances such as yours. Most tax appraisers are fairly reasonable about this sort of thing
If we fail to catch a cosmic fish it may be a trillion years before the opportunity comes again
My assessor is part of the cause of the high taxes, we don't see eye to eye on a few issues. Assessor told us we did not have to move there if we did not like what we see. When we purchased the lot these neighbors recently moved in to that location. I understand they trashed the last house they were renting, it stood unoccupied for four years after they left it.
We used to live a few doors down from where we are now, that house was always well maintained by previous owner.
Our assessor is far from reasonable, honesty is not part of her vocabulary. It's not beneath her to alter public documents to bolster her case at tax grievance hearings.
Do your own research, document things and file an appeal. It's not all that hard.
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I do file an appeal and usually win. It's hard to get to the right amount when the assessor "doctors" some of the records, including fabricating incorrect equalization rates, and back dating and changing permit forms. These documents were given to hearing officer before we were in the room, and not seen until two weeks later when decision was mailed.
OK, I probably sympathize with you, but I still get a sense there is more than meets the eye here. I'm still trying to figure out if you want a solution or just a chance to vent.one option open to any citizen in this country is that if the officials fail to enfiorce, you can take it to civil court. be ready to demonstrate how they have caused you harm and have the judge recompense you.
You should also be able to let this flow on to the property owner too if he is permitting a use of the property in violation of the zoning codes. Of course, this would entail that you can diocument that he knows. A carefully constructed letter should take care of that. Something along the lines of - Because you are allowing XXX, and XXX is not permitted according to YYY, I want to know what you p=lan to do about the situation to avoid bringing down local property values any further. I expect to hear back from you with specific measures and plans before YYY or I will do XYZ
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Some of it is venting when we just got our revalued assessments and I have to look at that in front of me.
There are a few officials that are very vindictive when their paths are crossed. If I was not involved in the building trade or did not want to do business in this town in my lifetime, I could say more in a public meeting forum.
If I take my neighbors to court I still have to live with them. Presently we have somewhat of a truce with them. The wife I can talk to, the husband and kids are from a society with different or no rules.
That's a shame. Our appraiser has been fairly reasonable about adjusting 10% to 25% for the wind farms moving into our area, but you have to ask.
Sounds like you have had a few conversations with your assessor. Have you taken this specific issue up with them? Do you have an appraisal from your land purchase deal that would give you some leverage?
If you plan to hang onto the land for a while you might want to lower it's "paper" value for tax purposes, but it can sure bite you when you try to sell. If you had it appraised when you bought it, and then these guys moved in afterwards, you might want to have it re-appraised and present the difference to the assessor. It's harder to argue against documentation than it is to argue against reason.
If we fail to catch a cosmic fish it may be a trillion years before the opportunity comes again
An appraisal isn't documentation. it's just an informed opinion
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The appraisal we have supports my claimed market value. The appraisor could not quantify a value for bad neighbors. They use current similar sales and make adjustments for physical differences in real property. Also properties comparable to ours with no NFH are assessed alot lower than ours.
There is some politics involved. Lesson to learn - Don't accuse a dishonest person of being dishonest, if they can get even.
Someday a road may go thru our property to connect two developments, this was not an issue when we went thru subdivision. It came up when the next parcel went to be developed three years after.
Edited 4/5/2005 5:03 pm ET by arrowpov
where in the world in upstate NY are you??? I come from there myself...(St. Lawrence County) and have seen numerous places just like that...we always joked about one town that to be elected Mayor you had to have more refrigerators on your front porch than anybody else......gimme the scoop!!!!
If you aren't one of the one's I'm talking about,you shouldn't have any complaints....
The capital region. The zoning and code laws are arbitrarily enforced, it depends on who you are. As far as assessments go friends and family of certain people get sweet deals.
The junk and other issues don't bother me as much as paying the same or more for taxes on similar properties in more "exclusive" neighborhoods.
Looks like home to me.
(-:
A: Any woman who can run faster than the governor.
Can I send them out your way ? They are real special people. I was talking to one of our local police officers, out of the blue he asked me how I liked my neighbors. He said it's better that they are my neighbors than his. They used to live next to him before they moved. I can't say here what else he said about them.
I must be blessed
Why are you takin' pics of my driveway?
Howdy neighbor
Dunno, maybe you should be paying more
Looks like a clean thriving, healthy business to me. Who owned what first? Are they licensed? Required to be so? In violation of zoning? What does yours look like?
You just want somebody to agree with you or do you want an objective opinion based on all the facts?
let's have some facts then
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
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Facts
Neighborhood zoned residential , auto repair and sales not permitted. Garage in front yard is an assessory structure built four years ago. Assessory structures not allowed in front yard without variance, as far as I know no variance was applied for or granted. Unregistered vehicles are not allowed outside in plain view, three at least are not currently registered and have'nt moved in years. Out back is an empty inground pool that requires a fence, they tore it down five years ago, NYS code requires a fence around the pool. Pool gets a few feet of stagnant water in the summer and mosquitoes have a party. Stray cats and other rodent type creatures live around their house because they throw food out for them. The cats make little gravel crap piles in my driveway.
Surrounding homes are well maintained single family residences.
These neighbors have complained in local paper that when the town has enforced code violations against them it with the intention of harassing them. After that they have a license to kill, authorities stay away.
Zoning officials forced a local resident to keep his brand new Chevy crew cab pickup inside, because it meets the definition of a commercial vehicle, they are not allowed out in driveway's overnight in residential zones.
I keep our property clean, I don't encroach on neighboring properties with sheds and dump construction debris on them.
As far as who owned what first they were there a year before we bought our property. It took them a while to run down the condition of their home, the picture looks better than what is there.
The neighbors thought any land past their rear property line must be theirs also, that's another long story. There are many issues if I left out any helpful details just ask.
Ya know, folks should have some rights to use their property as they see fit.
Would be illegal in my town though because we passed a 'junk' ordinance. They would be fined $100 per day per count. Each car would be 1 count. Severe. I voted against it. From my perspective, I may not like the scenery, but it will not actually damage my eyes. Live and let live.
In terms of appraisal, ours are based upon market value, and they do take this sort of thing into account.
Other residents are burned at the stake by AHJ for similar offenses, these guy's get a free ride.
Sound like time for some complaining to the AHJ over the AHJ.The elected officals.
Be real careful this is a war waiting to happen. When in agony and doubt search the Bible, I am sure there is succor for living next door to a used car lot.
The war has been on since day one, when they claimed adverse possession to our property and blamed us for destroying their pool that was bad when they bought their house.
why dont you put up a fence and do this
stop picking on them. you can't choose your neighbors."as in myob
Edited 4/6/2005 7:04 pm ET by bud
aah, if it were only so easy to just ignore them and all the BS that goes with it. evidently you've never had the proverbial neighbors from hell. until you have, you can't understand that there is no fence tall enough to block it out of your conscience.
m
i hear you- dw and i were trying to decide whether or not we were going to put some money into this house and make it more like our 'dream home', but one of the deciding factors not to was the band of sh!theads who moved in to the west of us. the house is a couple hundred yards away but the access road runs right by the side of our property- we get to see and hear a virtually continuous stream of rabble going by at all hours...
m
Hellllllooooo.........
The guy is paying NINE K in taxes and all he can do is moan about the neighbors? Blue wouldn't last long next to this guy.
(but if we didn't pay TAXES we might not be able to afford SCHOOLs and what would we do? WHAT WOULD WE DO????
Puke
The fence would go thru one of their out buildings, they have no respect for anybody's boundries. They drive their four wheelers across the other neighbors yards. Another neighbor posted his property,put chains with fluorescent tape across the trails they made, two days later chains were cut. Hunting season was 365 days a year when they had access to our property.
When I get blamed for destroying their pool (that was bad long before I started construction) it's hard to ignore their stunts.
I see now You would rather bitch and moan than to do something about it. They put a building on yopur property and you do nothing but watch it set there? I'm starting to think you deserve this treatment
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No I have been doing something about these problems. I have shown the code enforcement officers our survey, the property line corners and stakes. They say they don't get involved in property disputes. These are the same people that will make you move your shed if it less than five feet from your own property line. I have no idea how they can determine the locations on the ones they do enforce The same officers would have to be blind not to notice the pool with no fence.
I get along with the zoning enforcement officer, he is not fond of these neighbors either, they have jerked him around also. He told me he has to check with the town supervisor before he enforces anything involved with them.
I did get the neighbors to demolish one of the two buildings on my property, the crap pile has been sitting there for nine months since they demolished it. They still need to fill in the 200 foot ditch they dug on our property. The day they dug the ditch I asked the police to stop them until they could prove who's property they were digging on. The police told me they have no experience in reading maps so they can't get involved.
I need to provide protection for surveyors when they go in to that part of the property, which has been surveyed two times now, the pins seem to vanish.
I have been doing what I can legally do for five years, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Piffen you would have to live here to actually believe believe what happens. If I embarrass or call to task the public officials that will not do their jobs, I will never get another project approved or plans reviewed on a timely basis. If I had nothing to lose professionally some people would not have their jobs.
Edited 4/8/2005 10:44 am ET by arrowpov
Repairing vehicles other than their own in garage. A couple cars have for sale signs in windows.
Ok, sounds like a business to me. Which begs the question, does the AHJ regulate businesses? If not, does the local EPA-type group regulate POL (petroleum, oil, & lubricant) spills?
What I'm suggesting is that the Code Enforcement people might not be the best "dogs" to "sic" on this problem. Why send a poodle to do a Doberman's work?
Edit to clarify that I in no way am suggesting that CE folk are only poodles. All here know that it would be a very bad thing to get cross-wise with Mr Mooney in his jurisdiction about the building codes. It's just that the State EPA has more folk to go lean on people with. If leaning upon them is what is needed.
Edited 4/5/2005 4:18 pm ET by CapnMac
Might I suggest one of these?:
View Image
Works wonders for unruly neighbors that want to live in a trash pit!
I had one of those this is what the neighbors may have done to it one day
And I thought I had it bad because I have to live next to this..................
View Image
"Affairs on the border cannot be judged by standards that hold elsewhere."
ah,shoot...bikini-clad girl pic. This'll get tossed in the Tavern.
So'd your property value go up?? ahh....what was the question ?
them heifer ranches sure take some gettin used to
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It's a feed lot.
"Affairs on the border cannot be judged by standards that hold elsewhere."
I am packing up and moving to your neighborhood
is your property tax 9 k a year, time to move.
yes 9k +/- a year
and I complain because mine is $280
I would be happy with $280 a month. There are people paying a lot more than us. There may be a lot of for sale signs this year.
$280 a year
How do they pay for schools and other services with such low taxes?
mine is $280
Add a whole 'nuther zero to the end, and that's what I pay for 1400 sf on .377 acres, up $500 from last year (and the chilluns ain't any smarter that I can see).
We are presently having some acrimonious debate down to Austin about school funding, as the primary collection is by property taxes. There's no end of wailing & gnashing of teeth at the thought of capping tax increases at only 3% per year. The talk of actually decreasing property taxes causes the politicos to go faint with the vapours. The school district superintendent is still suffering along at his paltry $182K per year, and none of his $70K & 90K assistants can find any other solution to the problem (other than to hire more people to look at the problem).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Our school is building a 20 million addition / rehab to middle school. If you look at it you would wonder where the money was spent.
you have my complete, absolute, heartfelt sympathies. dw and i lived it in denver for 7 verrrry long years. right down to taking photos, writing down license plate #'s, threatening to sue the city for failure to enforce their own laws, getting told to "stop picking on them. you can't choose your neighbors." 12 pages of documented code violations, etc, etc, etc.
wish i could offer some advice, but NOTHING ever worked for long. probably nothing that's legal ever could. some people are just hardcore scum and nothing/nobody can change that. we finally moved far, far away.
m
The upside to all this is I have'nt been bored in many years. The stress is taking it's toll on the wife. She still won't let me build a catapult.
Update: the neighbors on the other end of our property set their yard on fire last night , another neighbor called fire department, they were worried about fire spreading to their home.
To see all the fire equipment was better than watching tv.
Edited 4/6/2005 10:55 am ET by arrowpov
Be a real shame if they were to burn it right to the ground, huh?
these were the good neighbors, the fire would have to travel three properties down to get to NFH house.
A car rolled over a few years ago in front of NFH house, the police officer came up to me and said,"too bad gasoline did not leak from the overturned cars gas tank near the house someone could drop a match in it". I told him "I am glad you said that and not me".
Its about time someone started to think about alternative methods!!!
I was starting to lose hope. :)
Doug
You had better watch it or they will start to charge you and entertainment tax.
It floods down there so waterfront property with view tax might apply. Unfortunately NFH house is just out of harms way.
I know someone allready suggested similiar but........
EPA, DEC go right for the top.
I see swamp weeds groing there, so I'm guessing the propert is wet or marshy as in WETLAND??
Those dirtbags are dumping oil and antifreeze into the ground sure a shid is brown.
They can't do that. The whole deal is a health hazard, and a safety hazard from many aspects.
I wonder if their homeowners policy covers what they are doing?? or damage that may result from what they are doing??
Someone holding a mortgage on the property that they are polluting, who's gonna pay for the cleanup and what happens if it's condemned??
I forget exactly where you are, I know you told me. I just spent the last week in Col. Co. north end and southern Renselear near Castleton.
It's hard to believe that people still live that way. Your neighbors are neatniks compared to what I've been seeing!
I'd make it my job to sink them bastards.
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
[email protected]
No mortgage. The father-inlaw paid cash for the house with the agreement he could live there. He passed away shortly after moving there.
They dumped a bunch of construction debris in one wet area up front, the county authorities did nothing after it was reported to them.
If I could find out who insures them without costing me a lot of money, I would put a claim in for damages and debris dumped on our property. I often wonder where the oil and antifreeze goes.
I am not the only neighbor that complains to authorities about them, not much happens. If they think you are the ones filing complaints you will get nasty hand gestures, and letters to the editor about how they are being harrassed.
If you are aare of oil and antifreeze dumping call the DEP/EPA folks. They are like the Sheriff of Nottingham
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I can't say for sure they dump liquids there, but they do have many vehicles in various states of disrepair, and their outside housekeeping around the property seems to indicate a disregard for the environment.
They made a bonfire of pressure treated wood one night, guess who they were mad at when the fire department showed up at midnight to put it out. They were real upset the party was ruined.
In hindsight if the fire was allowed to continue, it was close to their house, the problem would have been eliminated.
Edited 4/8/2005 12:27 pm ET by arrowpov
Edited 4/8/2005 2:16 pm ET by arrowpov
I agree Mitch.
I'll never live another day with neighbors that I don't like. The instant I know I don't like them is the instant the decision is made to move. When we moved into our current place, I told the wife to hold off putting pictures up. I didn't want to have to patch and paint if the neighbors weren't neighborly.
I swear I would put the for sale sign up the day I move in if I found out I lived next to an idiot.
Life is too short.
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
Cap
When Kinky gets elected gov. all the problems with tax for the school money will be taken care of.
Just hold on, help is on the way!
Doug
Just hold on, help is on the way
Just getting pretty tiring tying ever more knots in the frayed yarns at the end of the rope to even think of Fruit Loops just yet (biscuits are just a far-off dream . . . )Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
property tax 9 k a year, time to move
That's what mine would be, for about an acre, improved, inside the city limits. It would be about 12-1500 in Dallas.
Out in the county, it would be a bit less, particularly if you subdivide your lot into improved/not improved and/or not improved-ag use.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
My brother will be up from Dallas tonight, he just built a good sized place there. I will have to see what he pays for taxes.
Could you please find out how much they are asking for the blue pick-up truck? ;)
"Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi
The blue truck is one of the kids vehicles I don't think that is for sale. They probably let this go cheap. One night I heard tires squealing and a lot of banging noises. This car was not all that bad until the family surrounded it with sledge hammers and pick-axes.
very very funny.
Hey !!!
Who cleaned up my place ???
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
It is easy to be friends with someone you always agree with.
Five gallons of gasoline and a match. Its history.
Bear
What ?You just couldn't resist digging yourself further into the stinky mud than arrowpov's neighbors ???
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow It is easy to be friends with someone you always agree with.
Approach this from a different angle...one you do not have to deal with the Assessor on. Can you get enough neighbors together with the balls to sign a "public nuisance" petition and then show up in court? (which is the really important part, since any judge knows full well that when people take time to actually show up, the issue is serious) It will take time and effort, but I think that is the only way you will get any satisfaction here given what you have said so far.
Document...date and time as close as possible in the past, and exact info from now on...every nuisance and violation you can see or hear. The more the better. Get a Peanut Butter jar, cut a slot in the top, and put a piece of paper with the relevant information each time there is another violation seen or heard. One violation does not a "nuisance" make, but a whole jar full...all well documented...is a different matter! You might also have that officer you spoke to subpoenaed if you get to court as I imagine he can give some background info as well on these yahoos.
Get copies of all your local ordinances and learn them well. Loud music, loud mufflers, rowdy parties, careless driving, especially with children in the area (that is probably a criminal violation if the driving is "reckless") anything pertaining to any and all ordinance and / or statutory violations is fair game.
Just don't host a BT Fest at your place any time soon! :-)
Edited to note that this is not for Luka...forgot to specify
Edited 4/8/2005 10:34 am ET by ikor
Most violations are in plain view. The authorities are well aware of them but they will not enforce them as they do consistantly in other locations.