“Dear PoPville,
Quick question in the hope that somebody has dealt with a similar situation and might have some advice.
We bought our condo 3 years ago and have lived there since. We have received the homestead deduction from the beginning on our tax bill and I sort of assumed that the application for this had been filed during closing.
However,
we just received a letter from the city that states that they have audited our account and did not find a homestead application on file but instead kept applying the homestead deduction from the previous owner. As a result, they request the retroactive payment for the last three years, which is quite expensive.
I understand that we might have missed to file this application, but wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar situation and advice. Is there any way to retroactively file the application so that we don’t have to pay the additional tax for the last three years? Or should we appeal? We called the tax office but they weren’t particularly helpful…
Thanks in advance!”