How to Appeal Your Property Tax Assessment in Georgia, Step by Step

Georgia gives a property owner one window each year to disagree with the county's value, and it is short. This is the owner's walk-through, in the order you will need it: reading the notice, meeting the deadline, filling out the form, choosing how the appeal is heard, and preparing for the hearing.

If you are trying to decide whether an independent appraisal is worth ordering for your appeal, I cover that separately in when a tax appeal appraisal helps, and what it must show.

Key Takeaways

• The deadline is 45 days. A written appeal must be filed with, or mailed to, the county board of tax assessors within 45 days of the date of your annual assessment notice, under O.C.G.A. 48-5-311. Miss it and your right to appeal is lost for that year.
• You appeal the value, not the bill. The grounds are value, uniformity, taxability, and a denied exemption. A higher tax bill by itself is not a ground.
• The question is January 1. Counties must set a fair market value as of January 1 of the tax year, so your evidence should speak to that date.
• Form PT-311A is the appeal form. It is the state's uniform form, it requires your own opinion of value, and it asks you to pick one way for the appeal to be heard.
• The county carries the burden on value. At the board of equalization, the board of tax assessors must prove its opinion of value by a preponderance of the evidence.
• A win can last three years. A reduced value is generally held for the next two tax years, with exceptions.

Step 1: Read the notice closely

Every Georgia county mails an annual notice of assessment. Under O.C.G.A. 48-5-306, the notice must be dated and must show last year's value, this year's value, a description of the property, the exemptions applied, how to appeal, and a contact person in the assessors' office. Counties must mail it by July 1, except for notices of corrections and mapping changes.

Two things on that notice deserve your attention.

The property description. Compare what the county has on record with what you actually own: square footage, number of baths, lot size, finished basement, outbuildings. A wrong fact in the county's record is often the simplest thing to fix.

The value. The figure on the notice is the county's opinion of fair market value. Your tax is figured on 40 percent of that value under O.C.G.A. 48-5-7, less exemptions, times the millage rate. The notice must also tell you that the documents and records used to set your value are available on request. Ask for them. They show you what the county relied on.

Step 2: Put the deadline on your calendar

O.C.G.A. 48-5-311 gives you 45 days from the date the notice was mailed. The notice itself must say you have until 45 days after the date of the notice, and that if you do not appeal by then, your right to do so for this year is lost. Bartow County's assessors say plainly that the law provides no extension.

Count from the date printed on the notice, not the day it reached your mailbox. The Georgia property tax appeal calculator does the counting for you and also shows whether the likely savings justify the effort.

Step 3: Decide what value you believe is right, as of January 1

The Georgia Department of Revenue states that counties must establish a value as of January 1 of each year that meets the legal definition of fair market value. O.C.G.A. 48-5-2 defines that as the amount a knowledgeable buyer would pay and a willing seller would accept in an arm's length, bona fide sale.

So the useful question is not what your home would sell for today. It is what it would have sold for on January 1 of the tax year under appeal. The best evidence is usually sales of similar properties near that date, adjusted for the differences.

One caution. O.C.G.A. 48-5-2 directs assessors to consider bank sales, other financial institution owned sales, and distressed sales of comparable property among the factors in fair market value. Do not assume a nearby foreclosure sale will be ignored, by the county or by the board. If one is in your neighborhood, be ready to explain how it compares to your property.

Step 4: File a written appeal on Form PT-311A

The Department of Revenue publishes Form PT-311A as the state's uniform appeal form. File it with your county board of tax assessors, not with the Department of Revenue. Email filing counts only where the county board has adopted a written policy accepting it; otherwise mail it or deliver it.

On the form you will:

1. Check your grounds. Value, uniformity, taxability, exemption denied, and two covenant grounds. Check every one that applies.
2. State your value. The owner's value assertion is required. The statute lets you revise it later by giving the board written evidence.
3. Pick one method of appeal. More on that in Step 5.
4. Sign it, or have your agent sign it. If an agent signs, a letter of authorization must go with the form.

Put a number you can support in the value assertion. If the board of tax assessors does not respond to your appeal within 180 days (a second 180 days is possible in counties with heavy appeal volume, with notice to you), the value you asserted becomes the fair market value for that year under O.C.G.A. 48-5-311.

The form also warns that filing creates a review of the county's assessment, and that county appraisal staff may inspect the property.

Step 5: Choose how your appeal will be heard

PT-311A lists four routes, and you may select only one.

• County board of equalization. Hears value, uniformity, taxability, and, for residents, homestead exemption denials. It hears every ground, and choosing it needs no one's consent.
• Arbitration. Value only. The statute calls it nonbinding arbitration, and it requires you to deliver a certified appraisal to the board of tax assessors within 45 days of the county's acknowledgment of your appeal. If the county's value ends up closest to the arbitrator's value, you pay the arbitrator's fees and costs.
• Hearing officer. For nonhomestead real property with a fair market value over $500,000 on the notice, plus contiguous nonhomestead property of the same owner, and certain personal property accounts. Not available for your homestead.
• Superior court directly. Only by mutual written agreement with the board of tax assessors.

Step 6: What happens after you file

The board of tax assessors reviews the appeal.

• If it changes the value, it mails you a change notice. If you are still not satisfied, you have 30 days from the date that notice was mailed to tell the board in writing that you want to continue to the board of equalization.
• If it makes no change, its notice to you also sends the appeal on to the board of equalization. You do not have to file anything else.
• If you and the board sign an agreement on value, the appeal ends on the date of that agreement.

If tax bills go out before your appeal is decided, you receive a temporary bill. For most property it is based on the lesser of the last finally determined value or 85 percent of this year's value, and it is adjusted once the appeal is final.

Step 7: Prepare for the board of equalization hearing

The board of equalization sets a hearing date within 15 days of receiving your appeal, and holds the hearing no sooner than 20 days and no later than 30 days after notifying you of it. The notice tells you that you may ask for the other side's list of witnesses and documents. That request must be made at least 10 days before the hearing, and the list is due at least 7 days before it.

You may appear yourself, through an agent, or both. Name any agent to the board in writing before the hearing.

Know where the burden sits. Under O.C.G.A. 48-5-311, the county's findings about the physical facts of your property are presumed correct unless you show otherwise, but the board of tax assessors has to prove its opinion of value by a preponderance of the evidence. That means bring proof on both fronts: photographs and measurements for any fact you dispute, and sales evidence for value.

The board announces its decision at the end of your hearing and puts it in writing.

Step 8: If you disagree with the decision

Either side may appeal a board of equalization, hearing officer, or arbitrator decision to the superior court of the county where the property is located. You have 30 days from the date the decision is delivered. The superior court hears the case fresh, and the board of tax assessors again has the burden of proving its value. At that stage, talk to an attorney.

After a win: the two-year hold

Under O.C.G.A. 48-5-299(c), when an appeal decision or a signed agreement lowers the value, the county generally may not raise it for the next two years. The hold does not apply if you neither attended the hearing nor gave the board any written evidence of your value. It also gives way if you file a return at a different value, if either side appeals again in those years, or if the county finds substantial additions or improvements, or errors in its own records.

That is a reason to put your evidence in writing even when your appeal is modest.

Where an appraisal fits

You do not need an appraisal to appeal to the board of equalization. You do need a certified appraisal to take the arbitration route. Between those two, an appraisal is a judgment call that depends on how large the gap is and how much the case turns on value rather than on a fact the county has wrong. If you would like help with that judgment, my property tax appeal appraisal service page explains how I approach these assignments.

Before you hire anyone, know what to ask

Ask first what you are actually buying. A great deal of appraisal work in this country is a form: boxes checked, a grid of sales, a number at the bottom, and nothing on the page that explains itself. A board of equalization cannot use that. Three people hear your case, the county's staff answers it, and the reasoning has to be followable by whoever picks the report up next. That is a narrative report: the sales chosen and why, each adjustment and what supports it, the conclusion traceable back to the evidence. It is a different piece of work from a form, and you are entitled to ask which one you are being sold.

Then ask about the person, and ask the same things of every appraiser you are considering.

• Have they done a Georgia tax appeal, and how many?
• Have they been deposed or testified?
• Will they personally perform the inspection?
• What effective date of value will they use, and why? For this assignment it is January 1 of the tax year.
• Does the fee depend in any way on the outcome? That answer should be an immediate no.

Put them to me as well. I have been in the field since 1997, served as Chief Review Appraiser at two national appraisal management companies, where a disputed value came to my desk to be decided, built and ran a wholesale appraisal desk at 1,700 orders a year, run appraisal management operations, performed FHA field audits, and worked in litigation. I also walk the property with the owner rather than taking photographs and leaving, so by the time you sit down in front of the board you know what I looked at and why it moves the number.

FAQs: Appealing a Georgia Property Tax Assessment

Can I appeal because my tax bill went up?

Not on that basis alone. The appeal grounds are value, uniformity, taxability, and a denied exemption. A bill can rise because the millage rate changed even when your value did not, and the rate is not something the board of equalization decides.

What happens if I miss the 45 day deadline?

The statement Georgia law requires on every notice says your right to appeal that year's value is lost. You can appeal the next year's notice.

Do I need an attorney to appeal?

No. You may appear before the board of equalization yourself, through an agent, or both. An appeal to superior court is a lawsuit, and that is the point to get legal advice.

Will the county inspect my house if I appeal?

It may. The PT-311A form gives notice that county appraisal staff may inspect the property as part of the review.