Mom is taking much of everyone's time again. Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch once said of his mother - “One mother can take care of 6 children, but 6 children cannot take care of one mother”. It is true. I have 2 sisters, we each have a husband, but there is a niece and nephew – that is 8 adults to divide up taking care of mom.
The family house is cleared out – mostly due to my sisters, brother-in-laws, and niblings. ( I had invented a genderless word for nieces and nephews combined as there should be one – niblings. When I posted this on some group that I am on, someone replied that someone before me had come up with a word for nieces and nephews combined – guess what it was – yes, they also came up with niblings. I am now spreading the word in hope that this long missing word becomes common. Now I need a common word for aunts and uncles – any ideas out there?) There is a broker showing the house now. So, new problems come up.
The family house is in the county and township as husband and I live in. The county (and included townships and a city) has had for decades ongoing problems with the local real estate taxes and how properly the houses are assessed for the value to be taxed, In attempting to fix one problem an entirely new one arose. One can “grieve” their assessment (value of the house to be used for the real estate tax calculations) which means that one files with the county and says that the amount they say the house is worth is wrong and it should be less. There is no downside to this – they cannot raise your assessment, only lower it if they agree with you. One can do this one's self or one can use one of several companies which do the paperwork and deal with the county for you. Husband and I have done this for a long time with a company and our house value has always been lowered. Mom has not done in the past until last year (which is for next year's taxes) as she was afraid of losing her senior partial exemption from part of the school tax (part of the real estate taxes), though I had assured her it would not.
Two problems arose with the sale of the house related to the real estate taxes. First one is that since mom has this senior exemption she amount she pays for real estate taxes is probably less than someone buying her house will pay (it based on income and being over 65 plus one cannot have children in school). The second is that the broker told my sister that mom's taxes are terribly high – higher than the neighbor next door with the same model house, with additions that mom does not have. So yesterday my sister emailed me for help with same – since I am in the same county/township and know the system. First thing I did was take the copies of mom's tax bills that my sister emailed to me and add up what the tax would be without the senior exemption – took a little time as I had to add up all the lines of taxes – once I had the total percentage of the taxes that are charged all I had to do was multiply the assessed value (a small percentage of the actual value of the property/house) by this total percent of taxes and there it was. Even with both the school and other real estate taxes added together it was much less than the broker said it was. Also I telephoned the company which is handling the appeal and they said that due to the county revaluing all the properties in an attempt to even off the assessments mom's assessment will go down as she had not appealed her taxes while other had. I emailed all this to my sister and mentioned that the broker should be able to figure out what the full real estate taxes on a property is.
Well, a thought occurred to me today - there is another house in the county, in a different township, which has the same address. We found this out one year a couple of decades ago when mom's check to pay her real estate taxes was returned to her marked that the taxes had already been paid by someone else. I was going to check on same, but found an email from my sister that she had already thought of this and the huge high taxes (the taxes on this house are so high compared to other houses on the street that it does not make sense at all and there will be problems selling the house) and checked – the taxes the broker has is about $6,000 a year more than per mom's bill or on line and is actually the real estate taxes for the other house with the same address. My sister will tell this to the broker, as well as pointing out that the value of the house for the next year's taxes (starts in September) will be lower as value of the house is lower and I will get a letter from a the company handling the grieving of the assessment saying that same is being done. (Based on mail I receive from them for our house this should not be hard and mom should actually have had this paperwork at home – but her records were lacking as well as the letters might be in the stacks of papers I still have here to go through.)
At the same time I was relaxing from taking mom to the various doctors and thinking “Good, we have time now and can get her to a plastic surgeon for the possible cancer growths on her face and get to Costco for hearing aids . Oh, well, It is about 3 months since we last took her to the oncologist, the surgeon for her cancer and the cardiologist who put in her replacement pacemaker. Guess what – they all either wanted her back in 3 months or wanted blood work done. So I have an appointment set up with her surgeon. I asked doctor's staff if mom needed blood work and they had to check with the doctor and get back to me – did so today and I have to call back and give them the info for the “wellness” office at her residence as they will do the blood work there. I already gave that info to her oncologist – I had given the wellness office two sets of paperwork for blood work in November, they did the first one and apparently lost the second one to be done now. Hopefully the two sets of tests will be done together so poor mom does not have to be stuck twice for blood. We have an appointment for to have her pacemaker battery tested at the doctor's office, but they were suppose to set up for when one of their staff goes to mom's residence (lots of heart patients there – not surprising) to do test the pacemaker there. Have not heard back so I have to make sure they are set up to do that and then cancel the appointment. So, we are back on the doctors-go-round, luckily the doctor from heck does not need to be seen for a couple of months.
And it is about to be my work busy season – income tax season!
I did manage to take down and store away our small Christmas tree and Christmas stuffed dolls, pillows, and stockings – a small assortment of what I normally put out. I switched out a set of bear figurines that I keep in the living room and change by month to keep it seasonal and went from Christmas – the bears for same were only half put out on display – to February (Valentine's Day and bear “dressed” as cherry pie for Geo Washington's birthday). The Christmas ones are all stored away in their boxes. My Teddy Bear Christmas village never actually was finished and will be partially taken down soon, with some bears added and others rearranged for Valentine's Day. One can only do what one can do – and this Christmas season was not one that had time to get everything done.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Mom's doctors, blood work and related comes first – health over all other things.
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