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The other day I read that Alpine, NJ, despite being the most expensive place to buy a house in the country, has the among the lowest property taxes. When a city official was questioned about this, he said they were able to keep property taxes down, he said they focused on “not becoming a full-service town.

Of course, being on the lower end of the wealth scale, I thought “That isn’t fair that these people who own $4 million homes and obviously have tons of money get to pay less in property taxes!” Today I came across an article about property taxes on CNN Money and discovered that there’s a way for the common folk to get lower property taxes, too.

Dispute property’s assessed value

Beth Braverman from Money Magazine says the only way to get your property tax decreased is to get the estimated value of  your property decreased. You’ve got to come up with a good argument for why the property assessment amount should be decreased, and you must win.

This won’t be as easy as getting an online cash advance, but it sounds like it can be done. Home prices have dropped 27 percent since 2006, so it makes sense that if your property value has dropped, you should not have to pay as much property tax.

Learn the rules

First off, you must appeal your  tax bill within 30 to 90 days from when you get it, depending on where you live. Find out the rules in your area regarding how long you have to make an appeal as well as how much your assessment has to be off by in order to file an appeal.

Make sure you carefully read over your official property record and check to make sure it is accurate. Then, check out zillow.com and compare your homes value to similar homes.

The faster the better

The sooner you file your appeal, the closer to the front of the hearing line you’ll be. Most areas require that you show up in person for your hearing. Braverman recommends sitting in on a property tax hearing to prepare for your own hearing.

If your hearing is after your taxes are due, you will have to pay them. However, if you win your appeal you will get a refund.

If you lose your appeal on the city level, you can appeal at a state level. States usually won’t take appeals from people seeking less than a few thousand dollars.

Be nice!

Braverman emphasizes that property assessors are bombarded with angry people demanding their assessment be changed. If you nicely, pleasantly and informally discuss your property value with the assessor, you’ll stand out.

Never underestimate the power of being nice.

History tries to repeat itself

The Federal Housing Authority says it doesn’t have the resources to police predatory lenders. Officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development say the FHA needs more staff, better technology and added legal authority if it is going to stop another wave of shady lending practices from hitting the country.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which so far has spend $350 billion, was put in place to aid lenders by giving them federal funds. The FHA is charged with screening people who apply for bailout money or otherwise try to get involved with federally backed loans. However, recent examples have shown the FHA is ill-equipped to do so. Too bad a payday loan can’t help.

Finding ways around the law

The first example seems to be simply of slipping through the cracks. An FHA lender in New York was debarred five  years ago. That lender was somehow able to go back into the business, and it continued using the same fraudulent practices that got its license taken away in the first place.

A lending company in Arizona had its license suspended and then filed for bankruptcy. The company promptly resumed operations by putting the company under a different owner’s name.

Evaluating evaluators

The FHA isn’t just in charge of screening lenders. It is also responsible for screening appraisers, people who assign value to homes or property. Right now the government’s list of appraisers still names 199 who have been disciplined by the states. The list also includes 3,480 with expired licenses.

As home prices continue to fall and property taxes continue to rise, homeowners are challenging the appraisal value of their property. Appraisers are being overloaded with requests for re-evaluating a home’s worth. The more appraisers are hit up with these requests, the more bogged down the FHA will become.

Get on the right track

In my opinion, it is imperative that these organizations immediately get the staff and the technology they need in order to be able to properly screen requests for federal funds. Obama has requested access to the remaining $350 billion in TARP funds. If the FHA’s problems aren’t fixed before the government starts handing out money again, Americans will be vulnerable, once again, to predatory lending practices. And this time it’ll be our own government paying those shady lenders.

The first step toward fixing these problems comes with double benefits: Hire people! If some bailout money is used to pay more staff it will have the added affect of giving jobs to part of the 7.2 percent of the population that is unemployed right now. Add that to preventing more of the same mistakes that caused the mortgage crisis in the first place, and we have a winner. I think getting the proper technology for these organizations would be a worthy investment, as well.

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