Who here owns 5 or more acres?

[monnie662]

Our taxes on the land here last year was $80.00. The tax on our 15 year old mobile home was $165.00, the tags on the truck (A mid 90's four wheel drive Durango) was $24.00.

We do have a homestead exemption here, but I haven't signed up for it yet.

You need to file that homestead exemption. It will save you some bucks. Also Mississippi vehicle tags are what sucks. They eat you alive so I guess that is where we get by with the homestead exemption to make up the difference. But all in all we have a lot of people moving to Mississippi because of our tax base and a cheaper place to live. Even if it does get hot during the summer.

 

[speckledhen]

Interesting and disheartening development today. We returned from errands to find a business card on our gate from a realtor/appraiser which read:

"Mr. XXX, Please call me about your letter to the newspaper. I agree with you & I have some information to share with you. You hit the nail right on the head.
(Name Left Out) @ XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXXX"

This man had so much to tell us about corruption in the county, bizarre goings-on on his multiple property holdings. He was astounded that the paper would even run that letter to the editor my DH wrote since they rarely publish anything derogatory about this county or its officials. He was someone who actually won a judgement against the county for over charging of property taxes one year, but the suit cost him a huge amount of money, not to mention being harassed in some really nasty ways, ways that necessitate he is always armed when he is out and about in the county. Sad, isn't it?

My husband and he spoke for about an hour about many things but one case in point illustrates what we are all dealing with here: he owns an 18 acre parcel of what the county deemed un-buildable land, paid about $25K for it a few years ago. Remember, this is completely un-buildable land, according to the county. The new assessment? Over $400,000 with taxes to match. Constitutional rights have been violated, states laws trashed, county says they don't give a crap about the state law, Georgia says they aren't interested in holding Fannin's feet to the fire. There are too many "good old boy" connections here to fight the system so, basically, we're screwed. What do you expect in a county where the mayor of Blue Ridge was arrested for a certain activity we don't speak about on BYC, then was re-elected, and then was arrested for gambling on that same activity yet again?

He wanted to let us know what to expect at our hearing. He said they have made up their minds already, that they may act polite, but we won't hear truth out of them. At least one particular official in the assessors office has severely undervalued land, according to this man today, who as a realtor/appraiser has access to more records than we currently do, so it's a case of the fox tending the henhouse.

Even with all this bad news, even if they deny the appeal, as it seems inevitable that they will (boy, will there be hundreds of new properties on the courthouse steps soon!), we have one more ace up our sleeves, which I don't divulge here.

 

[Capvin]

The system of real estate taxation in Georgia is the most discombobulated bunch of issues I have ever seen. And, I might add I have seen some pretty complicated real estate matters in my time. The real problem, as Spekledhen alluded to is that the State allows the individual conties to determine what they want to do . The State has its own set of laws, which are really just guidlines, and leaves it up to the individual county to determine how they want to follow, if at all. Here, in Florida, we have homestead exemption, with certain add ons for specific situations and all the counties must follow. They can set their own millage within certain guidlines, but not much else. Georgia also has a similar law for the State, but for much of the add ons they leave it to the individual counties to do as they choose. The biggest thing that happened in Fannin County was the State has a law that says for certain homesteads plus surrounding 10 acres the tax rate can be frozen. Fannin went along with freezing the tax assesments for severl years and just recently decide to unfreeze. When they did that they did not begin catch up by raising the assessments a bit at a time. Rather they raised them all at once (like 500%) and even though the county is proud to point out that they kept the same millage as last year they really have nothing to be proud about because they are dealing with actual real estate taxes that increased a really big amount.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Oh crap Cyn. You sure you don't live in CA? Sounds like something our messed up state would do. I'm still hoping it goes well for you.

 

[dawg53]

Gee Cyn....I thought for a minute yall moved to Camden County. Glad I'm outta there.

 

[speckledhen]

I had a huge post ready, but I've hijacked the OP's thread enough already--I'm really sorry!! I'm going to go post it on our SDWD thread now. Back to our regularly scheduled thread, guys...what was that again, LOL?

Who has 5 acres, was it??

 

[cmom]

1. Who here owns five or more acres?

2. Did you inherit the land or purchase it?

3. If purchased, how did you finance it?

Thanks!

1. Yes
2. Purchased
3. Cash

 

[Chick N Haus]

5.8
bought
seller financed

We live in Montana on a small lake, plenty of room for chickens, garden and if we wanted to keep some pastured livestock. No problems with neighbors, no sales tax,have our own well.

 

[halo]

10 acres, purchased in 1998, put 10% down, owner financed the rest. Put a trailer on it. Paid off land in a few years, used as equity to build house on it in 2004.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Halo, I never thought of doing that (putting a trailer on land, then build), though a yurt had crossed my mind.