Timing and tax assessments

October 11th, 2009

I just got my property tax assessment card in the mail, and wow, what fortunate timing: my house was valued at zero dollars, and will remain so for a couple of years. It turns out King County does its annual reassessments based on the value of your house/land as of July 31st. July 31st also happened to fall in the two week window where the old house was gone and the new house framing hadn’t been erected yet. If I had deconstructed a week or two later, or even a week or two earlier, my tax bill would have been quite a bit higher.

So, the lesson of this blog post is: if you’re building a new house, find out when your taxing authority resets property values and try to plan around it if you can.

Also, I’ve added some pictures of the ongoing HVAC, plumbing, and electrical rough-in to the photo gallery section.

3 Responses to “Timing and tax assessments”

  1. Nano Says:

    This sounds absolutely absurd. Not necessarily surprising, but most definitely extraordinary. And that it lasts for a few years even though they clearly know that you are in the process of building a home likely to be valued well north of $0, I am astonished.

    #1 - October 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
  2. Mike D. Says:

    Nano: Well, whenever you are doing work like this, you do get an extended period (two years, I believe) of leeway before you are assessed for the full value of the new house, but yeah, the timing was really good. It all kind of evens out anyway though, because I’ve been getting charged for the “full value” of the house that was on the property for the last year, when the “full value” to me was zero dollars. The value was negative in fact, because I had to deconstruct the thing.

    #2 - October 17th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
  3. Evan Says:

    Wow, good timing.

    They still have a value assigned to the land that you’re taxed on, right?

    I know this is an old post, but I’m a little slow =)

    #3 - December 7th, 2012 at 1:47 pm