New homeowner - what is the homestead/farmstead exclusion and should I apply for it? (O'Hara Township: rental)

[noblerare]

Hi, brand new homeowner here living in O'Hara Township.

We recently received a document in the mail informing us about applying for the homestead/farmstead exclusion and we have absolutely no idea what it means.

Can someone give it to us in layman's terms? Supposedly it will help lower our property tax rates but is there a catch to it? Will it come around to bite us in the future? Does it mean that we are willfully lowering our home's assessed value and may be bad in the future when we want to sell?

[Knepper3]

Basically a discount because you live in the property you own. It does lower your assessed value in turn lowering your taxes but pretty much everyone that lives in their home has the exclusion. It shouldn't effect anything when you sell, assessed value is not the same as an appraised value.



https://www.alleghenycounty.us/real-...t-50-faqs.aspx

[jea6321]

It allows you to exclude 18k of assessed value for property tax purposes. It can only be applied to your primary residence. so for instance, if you had a rental property, you can not claim it on the rental as its not your homestead.

there is no downside whatsoever. it will save you a few hundred bucks per year. If you sell, it will default back to non homestead until the new owner claims it.

[amattaro]

Is this the same thing as clean and green, where anything over 10 acres applies? I own 11.7 acres and it reduced the property tax on my land (it’s land only) by 90%+.

[Knepper3]

No, that is different. This is for living in a home as your primary residence.

[SteelCityRising]

Excellent! I was also curious about this, so thank you for asking the question. We want to buy in 2021, so this is immensely helpful to know!

[jea6321]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Excellent! I was also curious about this, so thank you for asking the question. We want to buy in 2021, so this is immensely helpful to know!

if you look at the county assessment site, you can see if the property in question has the homestead exemption applied. Almost all owner occupied homes will have it in place. If not, you can figure the annual taxes to be around $400 cheaper than what a listing might show.

[Nefret]

We have Clean and Green as well as the Farmstead Exemption and it's really helped with our taxes.

We have a small farm-based business-----I don't know whether or not that's a requirement for the Farmstead Exemption.