Each year, the Ada County Assessor’s Office is required to estimate the value of all property in the county and send that information to property owners. This is the ‘Assessment Notice’ you receive each June and it provides the value the county appraiser placed on your property as of January 1 of that year.
With a little help from the assessor’s website, we’ll break down that notice for you here!
If you have a mortgage on the property and you pay your taxes via your mortgage payment, the first thing you’ll want to check is that it says, This is not a bill. Do not pay., on the top and bottom of the notice. This alerts you that your mortgage company should be receiving the bill itself so they can pay it on your behalf out of your escrow account.
Below the ‘do not pay’ language and the Ada County seal will be the legal description of your property on the left side and the property address on the right side. Below that is your name and mailing address, as well as your appraiser’s contact information and the date by which any appeal must be filed.
Then there is a section formatted in a grid that includes a description of the property — for example ‘Res Improvement’ and ‘Res Lot or Tract’, as well as the current year’s value for each. The ‘Improvement’ is the structure itself and the ‘Lot’ is … well, the lot!
Below that is your total assessed value as of January 1st, minus the ‘Homestead Exemption’, if applicable, which results in your net taxable property value — the amount your tax is based on.
If you live in the property as your full time residence, you should qualify for a Homestead Exemption. This is an amount the state legislature has agreed to exempt from your taxable value as a reward for owning the home as your primary residence.
The graph following this section shows the property’s assessed value and tax amount for previous years, as well as the current assessed value. The tax amount for the current year is shown as ‘0’ because the budget process occurs after assessment notices are mailed, so tax levies and property tax charges aren’t calculated and billed until fall.
The final section is the taxing district information which shows how your taxes are distributed, provides the taxing districts’ phone number, and the date of any budget hearings.
Hopefully this information helps as you’re reviewing your Assessment Notice
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