Philadelphia Property Tax Overhaul Continues

Philadelphia’s Office of Property Assessments (OPA) has mailed out all new tax assessments under the greatly anticipated Actual Value Initiative (AVI) earlier this month. The information mailed by OPA includes the new assessed value, and instructions on the opportunity to dispute the new assessments. It is still unknown how successful a homeowner will be in protesting their new assessment but it does seem that the city is providing easy explanation and instructions on how to protest. Appraisals, BPO’s, CMA’s and comps from local realtors will all be used to dispute assessments.

There is still a tremendous amount of debate within City Council on steps to mitigate far reaching and unintended impacts of the new values. One would expect the city to create some sort of alleviation for senior citizens, homes under water, or even our military civilians.

Now that all of the news of AVI has circulated the once nervous population of Philadelphia property owners could finally get down to the nitty gritty of what their taxes may end up increasing or even decreasing to. Although a milage rate has not yet been finalized by the city the speculation is 1.25% of the new assessment. From a Philadelphia Title Company perspective, it really is only having an impact on lenders and creating their escrows for property taxes. With some properties bound to have much larger tax liabilities many lenders will be stuck with charging the borrower the shortage at some point in the future or providing some sort of catch up plan for the borrower. A Philadelphia Title Insurance company meanwhile must be sure to advise the borrower of such so they are prepared for said increase. The last thing a borrower wants is a bill to arrive explaining that their mortgage payment is going up due to an increase in escrows. However, it is better to have fair warning…

AVI Tax Changes By Neighborhood