Look up property tax info online at the Orange County Tax Assessor's website.
Many home buyers ask me what the property tax rate is for a particular property in Orange County, California. They often ask me too if there is Mello-Roos associated with a property.
Here’s a little secret: You can look this info up yourself online. For free. Here’s how to do it:
1) Go to http://tax.ocgov.com/tcweb/search_page.asp.
2) You can search by parcel number, address, and a few other ways. Usually you’ll have just the address of the property, so go ahead and type that into the section where you can search by address. Then click on “Find”.
3) The next screen will show you the property address and parcel number record for that property. Click on the parcel number.
4) The next screen will show you the property tax records available online for that particular parcel number. Click on the parcel number. If there is more than one property tax record available, click on one for the most recent tax year available.
5) The next screen will show you the property tax detail for the selected tax year related to that parcel number. This will show a summary of the total property tax amounts due per installment for that tax year. You can also view the actual tax bill online by clicking on “View Original Bill”. Further down the screen, you can see a payment summary as well as a breakdown of the property’s assessed value and exemptions used for calculating property tax for that particular parcel and tax year.
6) For more detailed info on the total tax bill amount, scroll down until you see a bright yellow highlighted area that says “Click Here for Detailed Information on What Makes Up Your Taxes!” Go ahead and click that area.
7) A new screen will pop up with detail of your total annual property tax bill amount. Remember, this is for the whole tax year, not just one installment. It will detail all the different fees that comprise your property tax bill amount. Mello-Roos and any other special bonds will be included in the section called “special assessment user fees” — these are amounts that are not part of your actual property tax calculation, but rather additional amounts that you have to pay for this property that are lumped into your overall property tax bill. There are usually phone numbers included for each of these fees that you can call for more information about them.
And that’s it. No need to wait for your real estate agent to call you back about it. No need to call the county. You have this available at your fingertips for any property in Orange County, as long as you have the parcel number, address, etc.
Los Angeles County has a different process for getting such info online, but it’s actually available for you to view online as well. We’ll save that tutorial for another day, but you can try to find it yourself by going to the county assessor’s website for L.A. County and browsing around for property tax data.
Happy searching!
For more information on Orange County property taxes or real estate in general, feel free to contact me.
