Assessment Info

As our region slowly goes through the weary re-assessment process, we will be adding information on each County as the process is completed and information becomes available.

TIP: If and when you decide to have an appraisal performed on your property to appeal your tax assessment, make sure you give yourself and the appraiser enough time to make an appointment with you and also prepare the appraisal report. With the 30-40 year low in interest rates coupled with the large amount of Allegheny County assessment appeals, you don't want to find that you can't find an appraiser. Once you receive the notice from the County the hearing is already scheduled. Historically this is only approximately a 1-2 week advanced notice.

Hire an appraiser prior to being notified of a hearing date to ensure your appeal will go smoothly and you will not run into a worst case scenario, your appeal being dismissed due to the lack of information needed to fight your assessment!

Note: In Allegheny County, the assessment value is based on the 2002 tax year. This means that the appraisal can be prepared any time throughout the year due to the retrospective nature of the report.

FYI (LATEST UPDATE): A (RETROSPECTIVE) appraisal may be completed at any time. Due to the nature of the report (1/1/2002 effective date), this type of report can be performed at any time during the year. It doesn't matter when the report is performed, the effective date will always be the same (1/1/2002).

According to Allegheny County Office of Property Assessment, all residential appeals will have a 14 day window and commercial appeals a 30 day window. These dates are usually from when the notice is mailed which lessens the time period for the property owner. Generally, an appraiser may not have enough time to complete a report within this time frame due to previous commitments to other clients (lenders) and possibly weekends.

This is why it is advisable, if you are going to appeal your property assessment in the upcoming year to have the appraisal completed well enough in advance. This way you will have the documentation available at your hearing. To reiterate above, due to the appraisal being a (RETROSPECTIVE) appraisal report, the report can be completed at any time and the effective date of the report will not change from 1/1/2002.

Information to date:

Should I appeal my tax assessment?

Below are links to regional County assessment offices.
Please let us know if a link is broken or has changed. Thank you.

Allegheny County assessment information

Beaver County assessment information

Butler County assessment information

Fayette County assessment information

Lawrence County assessment information

Somerset County assessment information

Washington County assessment information

Westmoreland County assessment information

WARNING!

(ARM) Adjustable Rate Mortgage Holders!

New credit reporting criteria!

A new credit-scoring system that rates borrowers based on the type of mortgage they have could cause people with adjustable mortgages to pay higher interest rates on everything from credit cards to car loans.

Some financial experts, however, say this system bears a close resemblance to so-called universal default, which allows a credit card company to raise a customer's interest rate if he makes a late payment with another creditor.

"This is pretty much going to be all that credit card companies, student loan companies, auto lenders and other banks need to charge customers higher rates solely based on the kind of mortgages they have," said Lynnette Khalfani, a former reporter for t e Wall Street Journal and CNBC, and author of "Zero Debt." "Folks who were teased and seduced to sign up for ARMs just two years ago are paying for that decision in ways they never imagined," Mrs. Khalfani said. "You could never fathom it would cause higher rates on credit cards and higher payments too. That smacks of unfairness to the consumer." Not everyone with ARMs is struggling to make ends meet.