I read the previous review giving this attorney a one Star rating. I, like the previous reviewer, also received a mailing from him offering to file a tax appeal on my behalf. I didn't know him from Moses. I think I ignored the first letter and paid more attention to the second one that came a few months later. To tell you the truth, I was reluctant to pay the $25 fee the attorney mentioned was to be paid to him so that he could pay it to the appropriate tax appeal court in order to get the tax appeal ball rolling, thinking that maybe he sent these letters out to everybody regardless of their actual tax situation and that it would be $25 wasted. I thought he might file and pay the fee but the appeal would go nowhere, or might just keep it, and how would I know the difference? I suspected my property valuation was high but I also thought it might not be too, too high and maybe not enough to justify the effort and expense. I left the paper sitting on my desk again for quite some time.
For some reason I got over my fears and suspicions and decided to go ahead with it a couple of weeks later. Boy am I glad that I did! I ended up saving about $1300 in property taxes for the year 2014. I should save that much again every year going forward forever. I recently paid him his one-time fee, which I think was 37.5% of the first year's property tax savings. I remember the sum exactly as $492. I won't say that I paid it happily but I certainly paid it more happily then I pay my actual tax bill! I should mention that I paid it rather late and they had to send me a second notice. They were nice about it though. I paid a little late but I paid finally.
Honestly then, in this instance anyway, tax attorney Timothy Middleton deserves five stars without any doubt. He did everything he said he was going to do and I saved much more money than I thought I would -- my property tax assessment went from $230,000 down to $182,000. That's a $48,000 drop that I never expected to get, and probably wouldn't have gotten on my own if I had filed a tax appeal myself personally. Why do I say this? Because my neighbor told me he had tried several times to appeal their property tax assessment - he did it himself though without a lawyer - and both times his appeal was rejected on some grounds or other and resulted in zero savings and much loss of time.
I copy a segment of an earlier review by someone who did not take the leap of faith that I did so that you can contrast what he/she said with my own results:
"I again reached out to him to request the information again (I basically I wanted a reference or sample from him where he had already had successful appeals in our neighborhood). Instead of providing the information I received a rude email in return that basically told me he was too busy with other appeals to provide the information I requested and to find it on my own through the county website. He also told me that information couldn't be shared under attorney-client privilege. However, if I could find the information on a website he should also be able to provide it to me."
I want to point out that the people working for Mr. Middleton in his office (at least the lady who contacted me) were never rude with me, nor were they impatient at any time. Exactly the opposite was my experience. I called them and spoke to them more than once around the time of their first or second mailing and they were just fine with me over the phone. Furthermore, they were patient and polite with me about my lateness in paying his one-time fee well after the job was already done and I had received the benefit of the 2014 tax reduction.
Maybe I was just lucky but I don't think so.
Why do I bother to write this review? (it has taken way too much of my time already) Only because there might be a bunch of other good people (I consider myself to be a good person) who are unknowingly overpaying on their taxes and who might do nothing because they are suspicious of unsolicited mailings from a tax attorney saying that he has researched the county tax information for your neighborhood and thinks he can get your property reassessed at a lower rate and save you money on your property taxes. In my case at least it was WELL WORTH the $25 County tax appeal filing fee invested! -- being suspicious and extra cautious does not always work out; I found out much to my surprise. read more
