Christa Ross

If you are a resident of Murrysville, PA, own an older home, and are looking to take advantage of the great rates currently available to refinance your home, be aware that the Municipality of Murrysville requires all residents who are connected to the public sewer to have a dye test and camera inspection of their sanitary sewer lateral for illegal storm or surface water connections to the public sewer system. This inspection is performed by the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority (FTMSA) at a cost of $350.

While dye tests have been common for the sale of homes, this ordinance passed in September 2010 also requires homeowners to have the test done prior to a refinance. The catch is that many of the older homes in our area have terracotta lines that are susceptible to tree root infiltrations or cracks over time. If the dye test or camera picks up problems, you will be responsible for having your sewer line replaced, at your cost, prior to being able to refinance. Since this can be many thousands of dollars you may need to consider if the payback on the refinance will justify the cost of replacing your sewer line. In an added problem, it appears that if you have the test done and discover a problem, even if you change your mind on the refinance you may still be required to make the repair within 60 days. Click here to read more about the requirements.

In one neighborhood in Murrysville, three recent sales required replacement lines. One seller had to spend over $10K on the replacement of the line. And you can be sure as a seller, that your buyer will expect you to pick up this cost.

With many homes in Murrysville 20, 30 or 40+ years old you can expect that this will become a problem should you decide to refinance or sell, be sure to consider the cost as part of your calculation when planning either change.

If you recieved your Allegheny County assessment in the mail and found it to be flawed, then you need to appeal it. In fact, appeals are part of the system to get the values right. As most people would agree, it is practically impossible for a computer model, which was used for the new values, to be accurate all the time, and it is illegal for the assessors to do "spot assessments". So the only way to help make the model more accurate, and get your value correct, is through appeals.

Right now in Allegheny County there is a system of informal reviews and formal appeals. There are specific dates you need to meet for either of these processes. The RAMP website has a detailed list of the most current dates relating to the appeals here.

In order to appeal you will want to take evidence of comparable homes that support your belief that your assessment is too high. You need to find the closest matches in size, number of rooms, condition, age, parking, etc. More information on the appeal process can be found here.

Finally, it is important to note that a higher assessment does not necessarily mean your taxes are going up. The city, school district and county are required under Pennsylvania's anti-windfall law to readjusted property tax rates downward to remain revenue neutral in the year of the assessment. As a matter of fact, Chris Briem, a University of Pittsburgh economist, estimates that 6 out of 10 homeowners could see their taxes go down when all is finally revealed. Read more in a story from Brian O'Neill with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12008/1201780-155-0.stm#ixzz1kIAdUo00

Finally, if you are interested in the play-by-play on the twists and turns of the assessment process, check out the ongoing Reassessment Roulette blog on RAMP's website.

I am excited to announce that I recently published my Home Buyer's Guide and Home Seller's Guide on my website. Both guides were intended to help Pittsburgh buyers and sellers understand the details and decisions of buying or selling a home. These are not generic guides, but instead something that I put together and includes great Pittsburgh area resources and information. Covering Allegheny, Butler and Westmoreland counties with links for more information on a variety of real estate subjects. You can download either guide, for free, from my website at www.bestpittsburghhomes.com, just click on the "Planning to Buy" or "Ready to Sell" links to get the guide. I hope you find the guides helpful and feel free to call me with any questions about buying or selling your home in the Pittsburgh area.

There is a lot of confusion related to the new Allegheny County Reassessments that will be presented to county residents in the near future. Unfortunately a large amount of the information you hear will also be wrong. Here is a bit of the truth...

Myth: The reassessment will cause my taxes to go up.
Fact: Reassessment is a re-evaluation of what your house is worth.

Because of the states' anti-windfall law, the taxing bodies are not allowed to get a huge revenue boost when they do new assessments. In fact they are MANDATED to reduce the tax rate (millage) to keep the total amount of tax collected in line with the previous year. If your assessment goes up, but the millage goes down, you may actually end up paying exactly the same amount, or even less.

However, if you live in an area that had seen good appreciation, or if you have made major renovations or additions to your home, your could see a tax increase, but that is because you also have seen a real increase in the value of your property.

Myth: The goal of reassessment is for me to pay more.
Fact: The goal of reassessment is to distribute the tax burden fairly, based on the market value of your property.

Right now, Allegheny County is operating on assessments that were done in 2002. A lot has changed since then, some areas have seen appreciation and others have seen depreciation. Without a reassessment, those areas that have seen a drop in home values are paying more than they should, and the areas with appreciation are not paying their fair share.

Most politicians continue to argue that any reassessment will make everyone's taxes go up, but the reality is that reassessment will simply redistribute the tax burden fairly. The only thing that makes everyone's taxes go up is an increase in the tax rate (or a new tax), not a reassessment.

In 2006, a reassessment of county values was done, and then later thrown out due to a variety of political maneuvers. In 2007, those values were the subject of a study by CMU professor Paul Fischbeck. He looked at how those values would have affected the tax rates of Allegheny County residents. You can read the entire story here. His conclusion was that if the 2006 numbers were used, 75% of the municipalities in the county would have seen their residents get a decrease in taxes. Only 14 communities in Allegheny County would have seen a increase in their taxes of more than 5 percent.

Understand, this is not a decrease in the tax revenue brought in as a whole, but rather a redistribution where those municipalities that saw a depreciation in their home values would have also seen a reduction in their tax burden, while those homeowners who had assessments lower than their value would have seen an increase.

Myth: Whoever assessed my home made the value as high as possible.
Fact: The 2002 numbers that we currently work with were determined by a combination of 7 prices.
Based on 1 computerized estimate of value for your home + 5 comparable sales + one weighted value, with the 2 highest and 2 lowest of the seven thrown out, and then the remaining 3 averaged to get the amount used. It is likely that a similar method will be used to determine the 2011 values that will be coming out shortly.

Fact: The tax rate is going up.
This isn't related to the reassessment, although I am sure the politicians will be happy to blame it on reassessment, rather than take the blame themselves. Coinciding with both the reassessment and the new county administration is a brand new 1 mill tax rate increase for county property taxes starting in 2012. 1 mill is an increase of about $100 per $100,000 in home value. For more information on the increase you can read more here.

The bottom line:
For residents of Allegheny County who will be seeing the new reassessment values in the coming weeks, it is important to first calculate your actual taxes before jumping to the conclusion that your tax bill has gone up due to the higher assessment. This will be directly related to new tax millage rates for each municipality and school district, so be sure to get those before you worry about the bill. You just might be surprised at what you find.

I am looking for some thoughts on the PA Oil, Gas and Mineral Rights Addendum from Pennsylvania agents who are working in active Marcellus Shale areas.

The standard PA Agreement of Sale provides that all OGM rights to a property will be transferred to the buyer as part of the sale. If certain rights have been transferred to someone else by the current landowner or a prior owner, those rights cannot be transferred to the current buyer. That seems like it would be enough, but I have been seeing contracts with OGM Addendums. This addendum includes a checkbox for the buyer to specifically waive their right to investigate exactly what those transferred rights are, or not.

My questions are... Wouldn't the standard agreement of sale cover the need for urban and suburban residential properties? or are you using the OGM Addendum on all contracts? Have you ever had anyone that did want to investigate the OGM rights? Who did you send them to and what was the cost involved?