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We just bought a house. What do we tell the county assessor?

A week after closing on a house, we get a letter for the county. "Did your house price include furniture or appliances?" Our house came with both, how should we answer the assessor? Our county taxes are included in our monthly mortgage payment and don't pay it separately. I'm not above lying to the county to pay less taxes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Home/comments/1lv517h/we_just_bought_a_house_what_do_we_tell_the_county/
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PadSlammer

Answer yes. And give an approximate value of the furniture and appliances.

House + furniture + appliances + land is worth more than house. Taxes are based on house and land.

They should (in my jurisdiction anyway) remove the value of the furniture and the appliances from the total to define the value of the land + house.

18 hours ago
timetobealoser

The furniture increased the price u paid you get taxed on that price if u can deduct furniture that will lower value and taxes

18 hours ago
schizamp

Answer no if it's not listed in your contract or listing.

18 hours ago
ExpertExcuse1036

Wouldn’t that make it look like that was then the value of the house alone and increase your property tax. Unless you pay tax on the contents too.

18 hours ago
HomeOwner2023

It sounds like lying to lower your taxes doesn't work if your assessor practices reverse psychology.

18 hours ago
Dependent-Plane5522 OP

Thank-you!!!

18 hours ago
emejim

This is absolutely the wrong answer. If your house was 500,000 and the value of the furniture was $50,000. Your assessed value is $450,000. That is what you're paying taxes on. If you say no, then you will be paying taxes on the full $500,000.

16 hours ago
Dependent-Plane5522 OP

Thank you!!!

5 hours ago
LT_Dan78

Say yes and that 75% of the purchase price was for that stuff. 25% was for the house and land…

😁

15 hours ago
Embarrassed-Bed-7435

Make sure you check the bank isn't overcharging your property taxes, that happened to me. Luckily they didn't try to hide it when they realized. We were getting ready to buy our current house and on the phone with the mortgage specialist and going through our account and he noticed it. We were overpaying for 10 years. Ended up getting a 10-13k dollar cheque, so that was a nice little surprise. It never showed any amount owed to us on our property tax forms we received, it was like 4 tabs deep in the mortgage section of our banking app.

17 hours ago
mildOrWILD65

Be careful. I'd also recommend "no" but many jurisdictions require the seller to leave behind major appliances. An obvious lie will it turn out well

18 hours ago
Dependent-Plane5522 OP

It's definitely not required to leave appliances here as I see houses regularly being offer for sale with no appliances.

18 hours ago
mildOrWILD65

That's ok. As long as "no appliances" is explicitly mentioned, it's ok. Otherwise, afaik, most jurisdictions require appliances left in place.

Now, the seller can replace their SubZero refrigerator and Wolf range with bog-standard "generic" appliances, that's also acceptable. I guess the point is that buyers need to have basic appliances in place, unless otherwise agreed upon.

18 hours ago