A thankful heart

This is our fifth summer in our home. I love this home, it is very much like my home growing up. It has a similar floorplan. I love the character and rustic feel of it. However, a year into living here we learned it had some really horrible secrets. There was brand new baseboard that was gorgeous in the master bedroom, there was a purpose.. the major rot in the sheetrock, which over the course of time has led to crumbling huge holes. With the continual increase to our house note the past four years it leaves little money for repairs to such items. This year I decided we would try and fight things on our own, and not use a named service like we did the past two years. They had our home appraised at 185,000, after my first hearing they dropped it to 161,000 but that was still way out of our range. If I were to sell the house today I could not recover the purchase price of $116,000 without putting about $50,000 into repairs first.

Yesterday I met with the country appraiser's review board.  I listened as the county appraiser stated his facts as he knew them. When I began, voice shaking the entire time, trying to fight back tears as I spoke, I knew I had a captive audience, the Lord was working in each of their hearts. They reviewed the bid for repairs that my husband's brother in law prepared for us. They reviewed the pictures like these that I took, I had 64 of them. Some items they stated were upgrades like replacing the windows next to the fireplace that have pulled away from the home with double paned glass. That is okay my main concerns are the fireplace, bathroom and master bedroom, the windows will come in time.

When asked what the house would sell for, I stated maybe $120 but doubted that. I noticed the look in the woman's eyes as she asked the next question. Why we didn't file charges against the homeowner for non disclosed facts. My answer must have been the right one because her motion was to lower the house from $173,000 in improvements to $113,000, with the two acres of land at 12,000, that brought us to $125,000. It was all I could do to hold the waterfall of tears that would begin. It was a huge answer to prayer! Now I wait for that statement to then take it to the bank to hopefully then lower our house note the additional $400 increase that has been in place since May. It had increased $100 a year or more since we bought the home, each year. Now it will be more manageable. I pray that we are able to continue to sell quilts, get subbing jobs and that my husband can get some more side jobs to take care of some of these major issues with our home. I am truly thankful to everyone that has been praying along side us these past few months. I am thankful I trusted the Lord to help me in the pursuit of this fight. He truly granted me the desire of my heart yesterday morning.

Tackle it Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday

Out of all the pictures the appraiser could keep he kept this one. This is not how the floor looked when we bought the house 4 years ago. There was tile all the way to the wall, within about 6 months it started pulling up. Hmm maybe that is because they laid it directly onto of wood flooring which was on top of linoleum. It is frustrating that there were so many unseen hidden issues with the house just like this one.

I didn't get much done for my Tackle it Tuesday this week. I worked on property taxes all day. The getting the information part done that is. I really feel there should be classes held on how to fight to lower your taxes. I do understand that each case is different but there are actually Categories under which you want to gather information so that you can plead your case. I did not know this. I also found out today that all the pictures I took- well they needed dates, and I needed a contractors estimate, detailed estimate I might add, in order to fight the idea that my home is not sellable as is. It would have helped to also know that the refinance paperwork I had from the bank would not be useful. It needed a detailed appraisal not just an estimate of an appraisal. They want to know WHY exactly I feel they are wrong and they want EVERY detail. What I also realized- this too will cost us money. However, it will not be as much as the increase per month of $400 on my house note. So while I did not do any projects I did a lot of research. I wish every neighbor in my subdivision would fight their taxes. We are ALL paying too much. Onto my Wordless Wednesday

This is our dog- Pilsner. He feels neglected lately because I am so busy. He consoles himself here- under my desk. I will admit the tile floor is probably very nice and cool.