South Carolina property tax appeals

In South Carolina, your county assessor sets your home's fair market value, and your legal residence, if you own and occupy it, is assessed at 4 percent of that value rather than the 6 percent rate most other real property gets. Every five years, your county runs a countywide reassessment, and any increase in fair market value from that program is capped at 15 percent over the five year period. That cap resets to full market value whenever the property is sold, a transfer the state calls an assessable transfer of interest. Because the cap can hold your assessed value below what your home would actually sell for between reassessments, an appeal is most likely to help right after a reassessment year or right after you buy, when your value is freshly set to market. You have 90 days from your assessment notice to file a written notice of objection with the assessor, then you can appeal to the county Board of Assessment Appeals, and from there to the Administrative Law Court within 30 days of the board's decision. This is general information, not tax advice.