The mission of this Web Site is to provide information to property owners about real estate tax assessment representation services, and to provide a means to obtain appropriate services to attain the lowest level of taxation. The lowest level of real estate taxation is attained when you successfully appeal your real estate tax assessment, or when you successfully defend an appeal to increase your property assessment by a school district, city, boro or township. To learn of our services to reduce your year 2010 reassessment, click here. We will review your assessment situation and either accept or reject your case. We will advise you without charge to you. To retain us to defend you in a school district or other taxing jurisdiction appeal to increase your taxes, click here to read about our Defense Services and to complete forms to retain us. We will discuss your situation in advance of you retaining us to determine whether a defense is meritorious.

If you are entitled to receive a real estate tax refund because your assessment was reduced by a decision of the Assessment Board or the Court of Common Pleas Board of Viewers, but you have not received refunds, click on this sentence to obtain contact phone numbers to inquire as to status.

We offer Court Appeal Services for a further appeal of a Board of Assessment decision to the Common Pleas Court Board of Viewers for the situation of a property owner who filed a property owner appeal to the Board of Assessment and is dissatisfied with the Board of Assessment decision.

We also offer services to defend an appeal by a school district, city, boro or township to increase your taxes, either to the Board of Assessment or to the Common Pleas Court Board of Viewers, click here to read about our Defense Services and information you may gather to assist in an evaluation of your defense.

The Allegheny County new Home Rule Government has brought with it a New Assessment System. Understanding the New Assessment System is a key to protect yourself from overtaxation. Under Allegheny County's New Assessment System, assessment procedures are changed upon political whim. Homeowner assessments are now computer calculated instead of being based upon assessors exercising judgment after becoming familiar with your property and your neighborhood. Business and investment property assessments are now generated by "guessing on the high side", instead of being based upon assessor inspections and the exercise of appraisal judgment.

If your property has been unfairly over-assessed, a real estate tax appeal must be filed to reduce the over-assessment. In proceeding with a tax assessment appeal, understanding the process is essential. The best advice is that a property owner appeal should only be filed to obtain a fair market value assessment, not to attempt to get your property assessment as low as the assessments of other properties.

In 2003, to help his clients and others similarly situated, John Silvestri filed a lawsuit to attack the abusive hearing process which developed before the Board of Assessment in 2002. Until a Court decision was won in 2006, the hearing process before the Board of Assessment was rigged against property owners. Even if a hearing appeared to be fair and was conducted by a competent hearing officer who recommended a decrease in an assessment, "Case Reviewers" added "evidence" to the hearing file after the hearing closed to justify rejecting a hearing officer's recommendation of a tax reduction, or arbitrary inflation rates were used to justify not lowering assessments which are too high. Click here to view the lawsuit which ruled these un-American hearing tactics to be illegal, and to read the newspaper accounts of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court argument and decision.

You may contact me or provide me with your comments by E-mail at staff.john.silvestri@usa.net,
by phone at 412-391-0958, or
by mail at 1000 N. Negley Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Enjoy your visit