How to cut your property tax bill

Proposition 8 - allows a temporary tax reduction when a property's market value on January 1^st, is below the prior years assessed value.

Ask your Assessor - if your home is worth less than you paid, chances are you can get a temporary reduction in your property taxes. It's free and easy to do yourself.

Assessors in some Bay Area counties hit hard by the housing downturn - Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and Solano - are automatically reviewing homes purchased in the past few years to see if the homeowner qualifies for a cut in assessed value for 2008-09.

Even in these counties, homeowners who think their home's market value on Jan. 1 was lower than the assessed value on their last property tax bill can ask for a review.

You can call or write your assessor's office or download a form from their Web site and mail it to the assessor. To provide tax relief the assessor will be looking at recent sales in your area that are comparable to your home. If the homeowner and the assessor cannot agree on a value through this information process, the homeowner can file a formal appeal with the county's assessment appeals board, which will have the final say on the property's value.

The formal appeal must be submitted between July 2 and Sept. 15 in counties that send assessment notices to all homeowners by Aug. 1. In the Bay Area, these include Alameda, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties.

For more information on assessment appeals from the state Board of Equalization, see http://boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/pub30.pdf

Access forms online for Alameda and Contra Costa are below:http://www.acgov.org/forms/assessor/2008_2009_informal_request_decline_market_value.pdf

http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/assr/forms/4695.pdf