An old adage in the legal profession is “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” A couple of weeks ago I got a copy of anonymous letter addressed to one of the senior appraisers in Henrico County. The gist of this poorly written letter was certain features (i.e., number of bedrooms, baths and finished square footage) for a property I had just listed conflicted with the public information available through Zillow. Zgads, zstop zthe zpresses.

     Yesterday, while discarding some recent correspondence, I came across this letter again. Uncertain as to what the point of the letter was, I decided to call the senior appraiser at Henrico County and discuss it with him. Turns out that every few months, the appraiser receives one of these anonymous letter whenever anything is listed in this one subdivision where the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) information conflicts with public information. This genius author and real estate guru is always arguing that tax assessments in this subdivision are too high and public records need to reflect what is truly in the property. 

     There is only one problem with his reasoning. As in the instance of the property I had listed, the property had an additional bedroom, an additional full bath, and additional square footage from what public records showed. Items like this would only increase the tax assessment. 

     Whenever we have a slower real estate market, I cannot tell you how many calls I receive from people questioning their real estate tax assessments and whether they should appeal. My typical advice is never let the tax man in the door. I will guarantee you he will find items increasing your assessment.

     So if you live in the Colonies at Wilde Lake in western Henrico County, you might want to find out who this genius is. I can assure you this person is always railing about the real estate tax assessments to anyone who will listen. You need to tell this real estate “expert” to cool it. If Henrico County starts believing their records are so wrong for a community, particularly an affluent neighborhood, the county may well request physical inspections of the properties. Ka’ching ka’ching you lose.