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My wife, Vickie and I were staining the eves and overhangs on the house today and guess who pulls up. The tax assessor!
We don't even have the outside finnished yet, but the county is going to have theirs. It is on the " Started a new house today" post.
Later, Nat
The tax man flies over our area a few times a year to look for new construction. They even tell me they have fitted small cameras to reptiles to slither in and check out new buildings. (At least I think that's what these folks meant when they were talking about "that snake in the grass".)
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It is the one time you can honestly report that a government agency does its job well! [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]
My house took 1 1/2 years to build and is now 1 year old. I have never seen a building inspector but the tax guy has been here three times.
I ran a little experiment out in the county (which will go unnamed) that we are now making plans to build in. I had a small electrical modification I wanted done - installing a second electric meter on a duplex at my property.
I decided that I would go the full route of obtaining the needed permits myself, scheduling the inspector to come out, get the electrical company to swing buy for shutoff and turnon, etc.
The permit fee to install the new meter was in excess of $200. You need to know a little about California property taxes to understand why this simple work permit cost as much as it does.
The electric company, for some unknown reason to me, charged zero for their part of the work. That is VERY unlike all of the other relationships you have with a utility out here. There is so much government regulation, that every single thing gets a charge of one type or another.
On the day of the changeover, my electrician called the county to make his apointment. I saw this as a no-win situation because the poor guy had to get not ONE agency out there, but TWO. And both of those people needed to come out there not ONCE, but TWICE.
My guess was that all of those visits would be messed up thoroughly, and I would be dealing with a very unhappy electrician by end of day. At electrician rates, you don't want any of them to be unhappy.
Well, the meeting times did get fouled up. The electrician spent all day at the site for work that actually took him less than 2 hours to complete.
In terms of an 'inspection,' the county inspector came before the electrician was finished. So he (the inspector) left a signoff tag on the work anyway.
In terms of the guy from the electrical company who was supposed to shut off the electricity and turn it back on ... he showed up in the early AM and told my electrician to do all those things himself.
Three weeks later I received a call from the assessor's office, asking things about the new meter. Here in California they will tax you if you make improvements to your house. My blood started boiling when he introduced himself and started asking questions. I finally was irritated enough to tell him that he better not be thinking about adding a tax for me installing a small round device less than 8" in diameter.
I guess he agreed.
Now that I am building a new house on that parcel, I shudder to think about what that will involve and how many hickups we will have along the route.
<font color="blue"> Now that I am building a new house on that parcel, I shudder to think about what that will involve and how many hickups we will have along the route.
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Kind of a mixed blessing. The tax acessor shows up one time period unless of course you add on or build another structure. They do not show up again and re-assess. The reassessment is based only on the improvement, not the whole house. Thats part of the Propposition 13 law. The down side is that because of that, individual agencies attempt to circumvent this by adding "fees" to anything. Park fees, road mitigation fees, etc. Now I don't know about you, but I think a fee is something where you buy something that you think is worthy of your earned money. A tax is simply "you have it we want it" If they can so easily call these things fees, can we not then do similar things. For example, if we have rental income, why not just call it fee income instead, you know tell the folks renting the apartment that the rent is free, but there is a $600 monthly fee. Its a vicious cancer in government, there is never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever..... going to be enough. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]