On 12/18/2017 6:46 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 12/18/2017 04:29 PM, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 12/18/17 6:21 PM, Frank wrote:
They did increase the assessed value of my property by $600 and tax
about $15.Â* Assessed value here is about a third of the market value.
I called them about it and they said I would have to go through a
protest procedure which might take up to a year.Â* I'll pay the extra
tax but am ****ed.Â* That nice New Castle County assessor that came out
and looked at the replacement deck lied when he said the tax would not
go up.

How did the county know you replaced your deck?

Hidden observation posts outside Home Depot; microphones concealed in
street lamps to pick up repeated hammer blows?


Building permit?

Yes, permits were needed to tear down the old one and for the new one.
The builder took pictures of the tear down and emailed them in, then the
builder took pictures of the poured footers and sent them in. When new
Trex deck was installed the county came out and inspected it then a
while later the tax assessor came out. The latter is who I am ****ed at
for lying to me.

My old deck did not meet the current county code and even though old
footers were just the concrete slab patio below the contractor needed to
drill down through the concrete and nearly solid rock below to put new
concrete footers a yard down. Old deck was attached to the house but
new is essentially freestanding.

I had one bid where the contractor would have skirted the county permit
but built to code but we did not want the risk or bother. His was the
lowest bid but the one I took was only $500 more and I think footer
design was better. New Trex deck does look terrific and adds to the
value of the house.

Even in this small state with only 3 counties, code varies from county
to county and permits may not be required in the other two counties.

We've been in this house 45 years and hope to stay but this experience
has taught me a lot about rule changes and construction. Hope my
experience will help caution others in this ng.