Are you Over-Paying Your Property Taxes?

As many as one-quarter of San Diego County homeowners may be paying too much property tax because their homes are worth less now than when they bought them, according to study by a San Diego software company.

EasyTaxFix.com, a start-up that offers a Web-based property tax appeal service, conducted the study using county data provided by La Jolla-based MDA DataQuick. It estimates that one in four households is potentially over-assessed.

Though they haven't seen the study, officials at the county assessor's office say EasyTaxFix's calculations are probably about right.

The county did its own analysis recently, said Jeff Olson, chief of assessment services. It found that 28 percent of all county properties changed hands in the past four years – when values jumped sharply during the housing boom.

“If you consider that to be January 2004 to present, you're looking at 28 percent of the properties in the county that could be candidates for a reduction in value,” Olson said.

Click here for the rest of the article from the San Diego Union-Tribune.