Spinoff to my own tax grievance question -

DH and I closed in 2012 - in the process of our home purchase, the bank/town made the previous owner rip out an enclosed back porch. It had heat, walls and windows. Now it is a lovely outdoor porch, thankfully, but this porch is on our property drawing and is, I think, technically included in our square footage, thus we are paying taxes on it as livable space, which it is not. How do I proceed here? I've heard to never let anyone from the town in your house because they will always find some way to screw you, but we've had a number of people in the house to close out permits while we were doing work. Also, it kind of miffs me that the town absolutely KNOWS this porch was torn out and yet they don't update their records. I want to proceed cautiously here.

Also, I want to know how to proceed before submitting our signed form to Maidenbaum to grieve because if our taxes are reduced due to the porch being deleted, I don't want to owe them money for that deduction! TIA for any and all input!!

Re: Spinoff to my own tax grievance question -

if you were required to rip the porch out, it was because it didn't have a Certificate of Occupancy. If it didn't have a Certificate of Occupancy, it wasn't assessed as living space.

Re: Spinoff to my own tax grievance question -

Message edited 1/15/2014 2:15:38 PM.

Re: Spinoff to my own tax grievance question -

It is not calculated in the square footage of your "living space" but is calculated in the square footage of the structure of the property.

The square footage of the structure of the property is used when figuring out percentages of structure v. open space for things like pools, sheds, etc.

Square footage used as living space is at a higher rate - in other words, you're not being assessed as if its part of your home.