Nevertheless, property owners who have been appealed by a taxing entity should make sure they are aware of the property tax appeal procedures and should aggressively defend school district appeals. The taxing entities have gotten around this as described below, and very few, if any, property owners have been willing to take the matter on multiple appeals over multiples years to have the Pennsylvania Supreme Court address the matter. The school districts are not allowed to single out a property to appeal. This practice does not treat all property owners equally. We believe the taxing entities appealing the assessments of ONLY new home buyers should be considered spot-assessing in violation of the Pennsylvania constitution. There is a serious legal question whether or not these "Welcome to the neighborhood" appeals violate Pennsylvania law and specifically the uniformity clause of the second class County Code. The reality is that only appealing recent home buyers is actually much more complicated than it seems and there are ways to defend property tax increases. If you paid $500K for a property which is currently assessed at $200K, the taxing entity should be able to argue for an increase to the current assessment and thus increase the property taxes and their own revenue. We expect this trend to continue into 2022, especially with the currently inflated real estate market.
Some people actually refer to it as the "Welcome to the neighborhood tax." Every year, at least as far back as 2002, taxing entities and most typically school districts across Allegheny County have filed thousands of property tax appeals in an effort to increase property taxes for new home buyers.
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