Real Estate Tax in Somerville

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

I just got a rather shocking update from my mortgage company regarding the real estate tax for my house in Somerville. The mortgage company pays the taxes out of escrow for me and it seems that in the past year those taxes have tripled, literally. Was there a housing tax this past year that I missed?

Update: Think it is the residential exemption...thanks for the heads up. Will call to get it worked out on Monday. Thanks for the help!

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Do you live in a condo-ized three-decker, and maybe the city is charging you for all three units instead of just yours? Just a weird theory off the top of my head.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

It is a condo-ized three decker, but I've owned it now for 8 years, I'm not sure why that would suddenly happen...

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Who knows? All it takes is a data entry error by somebody somewhere. Anyway, that'd be my first avenue of inquiry.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Maybe they mistakenly rescinded the residential exemption for your place? Or it's new and you didn't file for it? They're supposed to send a form to all properties that changed hands in the last year but they might have missed you -- I think this happened to us as well.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

You should probably call about your residential exemption.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Reviewing our bills (scanned 'em, how convenient!) it looks like a year ago you could easily see your exemption amount on the bill but it is not obvious right now. I'd definitely call. It may still screw up your escrow for a while, it did ours.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Were you just re-assessed? When was the last time that happened? Is it possible your home has increased in value by a lot? Also, did you renew your residential exemption? Could iit be that it's not being applied? (Not that that would triple it, but it'd go up a bunch, anyway.)

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Aha: this! http://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/Res-Exemption.pdf

Will give a call on Monday to confirm that this is what is going on.

Thanks for the heads up!

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I have heard that somerville randomly revokes residential exemptions to force owners to reapply (and thus making sure they aren't giving away the exemption for free). There was other nonsense/warnings our agent told us but we decided to buy a house in another town so my memory of the somermess is fuzzy :)