I've identified your problem. I'm assessing you $5.00 for my work.
Seems you probably should have bought a smaller house.
Quick story. I do mortgages. A gentleman and his wife recently applied for a mortgage to purchase a home that was $220,000. The home hasnt been built yet and the developer was planning on starting construction in the next few weeks. Well, the customer was satisfied with a 30 year fixed rate of 7%, but wanted to lock it in today for 180 days so he could assure his rate at 7% when constrution was complete and he closed on the mortgage. I told him I could lock it for that long and laid out the costs of the extended lock-in that needed to be paid to get the extended lock. As I suspected he didnt like the fees. And I told him he was right to not like them and advised him against the extended lock.
His reaction... Well, if the interest rate goes above 7% by even a fraction between now and when we can do a regular loc-in the payments on the mortgage will be a burden and we wont be able to purchase the home.
My reaction... Sir, if a rise in interest rates of even 1/8th of a percent is going to pose a financial burden I strongly suggest buying a much smaller house. He wasnt happy with me, but sometimes people do need to be informed of their own stupidity.
Can't tell you what the 'initiative' was, other than to raise our taxes. We went from about $5k to just over $6500/yr. for a home valued at $230k. That's 2.7% of the value of my home PER YEAR.
The school system here had a very aggressive phone campaign going every night, calling EVERY home in the area, sometimes twice per night, telling people that unless they voted for the tax increase, class sizes would double, and the school day would be cut by one and a half hours PER DAY. The phone campaign was so bad, I had to call the phone company to have the incoming calls blocked, and I went out and bought one of those tele-zapper devices (which do work, btw!)
Parents of school age children including myself felt like this was blackmail & extortion and worked hard to defeat the tax increase.
I send my kids to PRIVATE school, so I end up paying twice anyway, but I'll be darned if I wanted to pay another $1500/yr. for a crappy school system that my kids will not attend!
So the wife and I are talking about moving too, much as I don't want to. We live in a great neighborhood with wonderful neighbors, and everyone gets along just fine. I resent on principle, being taxed to death by a taxing body that's not accountable to anyone.
Good luck to you.
But your point you are trying to make has to do with your property rights and I fully agree with you. You don't have them.
These insane Westchester bedroom communities are going to collapse under their own arrogance. I just want to be there to hear the thud.
My guess is that you will get to keep about $20,000 or more of YOUR MONEY every year.
That's about $18,000 per child. Yikes!
And at 25 kids per classroom, that's about $450,000 per classroom!
You could have much more land, better house, etc in another state.
My in-laws in Louisiana have 9 acres, a barn, a pool, two ponds stocked with fish, and a 5 bedroom house and their property value is only about $160k. They are 15 miles out of baton rouge, so its an easy commute to work, but safe, in the country, etc.
You could stay there in New York, and get zero bang for your buck, and try to fight, or go to a place more to your liking. It's your choice.
I would tell you to move out of NY entirely, but that would be some major uprooting on your part.
2) The people raising your taxes are socialists who hate you from the bottom of their hearts for daring to have a penny more than they do. If you and your family where found dead in the street, they would think it a terrible tragedy until they found out you had a nicer house than they do, then they would figure you had it coming.
3) Assuming a 30 year mortgage, a ballpark payment would be on the order of $6000 a month? So you are looking at less than a 10% difference in monthly payment. If you are that close to the edge, you are too close. Don't make this argument from the "I can't afford it" angle. People won't buy it, and will just get caught up telling you how dumb you are for putting yourself in a situation where a $500 a month increase in bills breaks you.
4) Solution: Move. Sell the house. Be the first. If the tax increases start pushing people out of their homes, property values will drop. Then you won't be able to sell it.
This is where the socialists win. Once in power, what can you do? People are nowhere near catching on to the scams run by the education bureaucracies. After they have run amuck for a while, taxing people out of their homes, then perhaps political pressure will build to reform education.
If I were to rewrite the Constitution, I'd forbid taxes on owned property. Taxes on owned property is nothing more than rent of the property. Either you own something or you do not. If you pay rent on it, you do not.
No need to apologize. You are dealing with a horrid situation IMHO. There have to be other homeowners who are as unhappy as you and would work with you on getting changes that are more friendly to you all.
Citizen groups can be powerful but someone has to step forward and assume leadership. I wish you well!
Are you serious, or is this an April Fools joke? I think you're serious.
Even in places like Seattle, or Portland, Oregon, property taxes on a $586,000 home would be much lower (maybe $6,000?). And these aren't bastions of small-government conservatism. Something is seriously wrong where you live. Are people voting in favor of these taxes?
All your neighbors are in the same boat, time to form your own coalition and vote the taxers out of office. Geeze 17K a year per family to schools? Give me a break.