The Observation Deck

Amazing how my house value went up 58% (common house on a common street), but our former mayor's went up 4.5% (and as a result, tax bill actually went down).

Many "irregularities" to be found:

I personally sold a large multi-family property in eastern Lakewood for $540,000 in an arm's length transaction in late 2021. That property was re-sold in 2023 for $850,000. However, the new assessed value is only $287,300. This is about the same value as a typical Lakewood house on a typical Lakewood street.

According to Ohio Revised Code Section 5713.03, "n determining the true value of any tract, lot, or parcel of real estate under this section, if such tract, lot, or parcel has been the subject of an arm's length sale between a willing seller and a willing buyer within a reasonable length of time, either before or after the tax lien date, the auditor may consider the sale price of such tract, lot, or parcel to be the true value for taxation purposes."

Can anyone explain this? This is not an isolated example.

Real estate (“property”) taxation is heinous, perhaps the worst form of taxation possible. It is capricious and arbitrary, enormous and recurring, and bears little relation to ability to pay. It’s also generally recognized that the taxation of unrealized gains (e.g. property tax) is in fact unconstitutional, by way of the 16th Amendment, which had to be enacted before even income (realized) taxes became legal to enact.

Ohio is one of the most heavily property-taxed states, at about 1.5% annually even before the local property taxes are piled on top. Lakewood (at over 3%) is simply outrageous. The market value of our homes is greatly diminished by way of Lakewood property tax. If Lakewood’s 3+% annual property tax was applied each and every year to, say, equities (stocks), equities would lose well over half their value overnight. The taxation of unrealized stock gains is generally considered almost unthinkable. But you have to have a place to live, so here we are….

My home valuation went up 72%. I filed an “informal” protest last summer, and got it reduced to a “mere” 60% increase. Back then, with some digging, I was able to actually locate and download the online County spreadsheet (.xls) file that shows all 470,000 residential properties located in Cuyahoga County, their current valuations, and their proposed (increased) valuations. Hah! I was also able to find the file that shows the actual 13 “comparables” (recently-sold nearby homes) that the County used to determine my revised (upward by 72%) valuation. I still have the file (470,000 line spreadsheet) but I can’t seem to get a Dropbox link to work or I would share the file with you. And I don’t want to take the time to unearth it again. The county hides it pretty well.

What I found is that the County data for my 13 comparables was VERY inaccurate, specifically with respect to square footage of the 13 homes. Many of the 13 homes had been added onto over the decades, but the County does not have that updated info. As a result, the County says that my home is (on average) 80% the size of neighboring homes, (using County data) when in fact (using Zillow) my home, which has never been added onto, is only 60% the size of the 13 comparables, on average. Adjusting for this brought my valuation down dramatically. (The County also shows my home as having central air. They must not have seen the window air conditioners when they drove by to perform my “valuation” last summer.)

County data for homes is often wildly inaccurate, and come tax time, always to the great disadvantage of County homeowners. It would be really interesting for someone with more time and money (and spunk) than me to very visibly demonstrate the inaccuracy of the County data. In my case, 10 of the 13 comparables were incorrect!!!! The County had smaller footages (than the homeowner reported via Zillow) in all 10 of those 13 instances, so my home was revalued based on wildly incorrect data. Somebody????

(I wish I could get my Dropbox link to the 470,000 line spreadsheet to work. I’d share the file. It’s a 32Mb file, large. But I bet that if your neighbor’s home has been added onto, the County has the old footage, not the new footage. So you get assessed for their addition!)

I’ve said this all before years ago in this forum. But it makes no difference. That’s because the people who conduct the valuations are paid by (drum roll please) the County! So no surprise. Plus, if property taxes were in fact to be repealed as unconstitutional, a replacement tax to fund 100% of the current recipients/programs could never be found and enacted. Government schools (aka “public schools”) as we know them would cease to exist. Gee….