Successful Challenge, Michigan Department of Treasury, Property Tax

Keep track of your property tax information, sometimes even the State gets it wrong.

The State of Michigan will revoke your property tax exemption for a variety of reasons.  This becomes a problem if the taxpayer does not know what the necessary steps are to correct the problem when the taxpayer is rightfully entitled to the exemption.

In this particular example, the process took so long, the taxpayer had to pay the full for an additional year, then file a claim for a recovery after the State conceded.

The taxpayer had a large parcel that had been owned in the family for many years, and had subsequently parceled it out into many smaller pieces.

A relative lives in one of the parcels and claimed the exemption, then Michigan's computer picked it up as if the taxpayer had taken a claim that they shouldn't have.

It took aerial photography, and and lot of colored markers; plus letters from taxpayer's neighbors to show the State that the taxpayer's claim was legitimate.

As you can see the case involved 2009 through 2012 and was not resolved until November 2013.

If the taxpayer did not maintain careful records of his parcel and the subsequent carving it up, as well as maintaining good relations with the neighbors, this would have been a very difficult case, and may not have had a good outcome.