A lot of us do not realize that filing a property tax appeal is not just for the purpose of trying to get your assessment lower. Of course, most of us would like for our assessments to be lower but there is another, relatively unknown, reason for filing an appeal. Georgia law provides that if a property owner files an appeal and goes through with the appeal to conclusion, the result obtained is frozen for the year appealed plus two more years. This is true, even if you do not get a reduction.
If you get into a habit of filing an appeal every fourth year (the year after the previous appeal freeze ended – which would be 2019 after appeal was filed in 2016), you would limit the tax assessor, over a 10 year period, to having just 3 chances to raise your assessment versus the tax assessor having 10 chances to raise your assessment. This gives you the ability to dollar average your property taxes. Therefore, if you never got a reduction, utilizing the freeze, more likely than not, will save you serious, serious dollars (especially in a rising market like we are in now).