Has Your Property Been Over-Valued by the Eagle County Assessors Office?

Our clients from the 2017 Tax Valuation achieved an average tax savings of $3,400, and our 2015 clients enjoyed an average tax savings of over $3,880.

You can see that taking the time and expense to investigate and appeal the valuations assigned by the Eagle County Assessor can be quite profitable. As they say, a penny saved is a penny earned. Take the time to determine if your property is reasonably valued.

Property taxes typically represent the largest non-mortgage expense associated with property ownership. Yet, most people don’t appeal their tax assessment because they don’t know how. They have no idea how to determine if they are being overcharged, so taxes remain unchallenged. Our goal is to demystify the process, make it easy to understand, and put you in control of your property taxes.

Eagle County Tax Appeal has been helping homeowners in their Eagle County tax appeals for more than 20 years. We understand how the system works. We have experience handling a wide variety of appeals, saving our clients thousands of dollars. You can feel confident that we will provide your Tax Protest Services promptly, professionally, and cost effectively.

Most important, we are appraisal experts in Eagle County. Our office performs hundreds of appraisals a year in Eagle County. We are well known for providing high quality appraisal services that accurately reflect the behavior of the marketplace.  We utilize this knowledge and expertise in the preparation of Tax Appeal Reports and attendance at appeal hearings.

Our program has grown considerably over the years, and we have always been successful in helping our clients determine the reasonableness of their valuations and the feasibility of pursuing an appeal.  And, when an appeal is justified, our program has provided overwhelmingly positive results. 

Highlights of the 2021 Appeals Program Success!

• 81% of our appeals resulted in a value reduction.
• The average value reduction was $176,057, or 6.09% of the original value.
• The average tax savings from an appeal was $2,269.

The Eagle County Assessors office has a very difficult task. They must assign values to more than 60,000 properties. The diverse array of properties in the county increases the complexity of this task. The time constraints involved in valuing such a large number of unique properties necessitates the use of mass appraisal techniques.

Mass appraisal methodology involves the use of regression analysis. This methodology often does not properly account for meaningful differences in value, such as site characteristics, views, locations, renovation of properties, construction quality, and unique appeal characteristics. Problems are compounded when the sales data from a neighborhood is diverse, which is very common in our mountain resort marketplace.

This is the reason why mortgage lenders and banks do not accept the county assessed valuation when making real estate loans and mortgages. Valuations for property tax purposes just do not provide the level of accuracy required to secure the interests of lending situations.

The reliability of Mass Appraisal methodology is directly dependent on the:

1. Accuracy of Subject & Comparable Sales Data: Unfortunately, there are many reasons for errors in the County data.

• • Errors are made in characterizing properties. 
  • Properties change, and the county staff is unaware of the changes. 
  • Sellers do not fill out the Transfer Declaration forms correctly, resulting in inappropriate Effective Sales Prices of comparable sales. 

Through research, these errors may be rectified, resulting in successful tax protests that save taxpayers significant sums of money. The appraisal staff of Eagle County Tax Appeal is prepared to perform research to detect these errors.

2. Similarity of Comparable Sales Data: It is important to remember that the greater the number of differences between a property and a comparable sale, the greater the chance of making an error in quantifying the market adjustment for that difference. Therefore, if the sales data utilized to value your property differs substantially, there is a stronger likelihood of an unjust valuation being assigned to your property.

We understand that this can all be a bit confusing. If you have any doubts about the accuracy of the value assigned to your property by the County Assessor, order a Feasibility Tax Report now! You will be provided information needed to help determine the reasonableness of your property value and the feasibility of an appeal.  If we cannot support a reduction, at least you will have the peace of mind that you are not over-paying your property taxes.

After you have received the Feasibility Tax Report, if we believe your property is overvalued and further appeal is feasible, we will pursue the protest process for you. We will prepare a Tax Protest Report utilizing the most accurate methodologies available. This report will be submitted to the Eagle County Assessor’s office by June 1, 2023. Many times, a successful reduction in value is achieved at this first stage of the appeals process.  Other times, appeals to the 3 different stages of the appeals process are necessary to provide the best result.