New Georgia law freezes property assessment hikes...
Attention homeowners: Your property assessment cannot increase until after January 2011. Legislation Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed into law on Wednesday, May 6 makes sure of that. House Bill 233, sponsored by Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta), prevents local governments from increasing the assessments used to calculate property taxes for two years.
Of course, assessments may be lowered, a distinction that is important as counties deal with the effects of another new law that requires assessors to consider foreclosures and other distressed properties when setting property values.
That has led to thousands of homes seeing assessed values fall. Some counties have needed a little extra push to convince them to do that, however.