May 1st is when most of us received our new property tax valuation statements from the County Assessor. If you feel the valuation is too high and want to appeal it, here's some information you may find useful.

By law, only the sales of comparable homes prior to June 30, 2008, may be used by the assessor in assigning a value to your home or by you in appealing that value. That's because the valuation assigned to your home for property tax purposes must be its value on June 30, 2008, not its value today.

First you need to find out whether you have a basis for your appeal by looking at the eligible comps for your home, which are displayed for you on the assessor's website. Go to http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/ats/addresssearch.do, enter your address and, once your home is displayed, click on the tab "Neighborhood Sales" to get list of eligible comps for your address. These are the ONLY eligible comps that you can cite, and you'll need to cite three which, taken together, support a lower price for your home. Your home's own data are displayed above the list of comps for easy comparison. I suggest you click on the column "Main," so that the comps are displayed in order of their square footage. The best comps for your home will be the ones that are the same style (ranch, 2-story, etc.) and approximately the same square footage. You can click on the address of any comp to get more info on it.

If you have any questions about how to proceed after looking at your comps, or if you'd like advice on how to craft your appeal, please don't hesitate to call me at 303-525-1851, or, better, email me at Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com . I'm happy to be of service to you.

Jim Smith, Broker/Owner

Golden Real Estate