Over the past two years, nearly 200 Chester County Mobile Homeowners have received major property tax reductions under the Mobile Home Tax Appeal Campaign initiated within the Honey Brook Food Pantry.  The average homeowner will save over $900 yearly as a result of the appeals, which computes to cumulative savings of over $185,000 every year!  We are hopeful that our efforts will eventually lead to changes in the tax system so that mobile homes will be taxed fairly without the need of individual appeals.  We greatly appreciate the organizations that have come together to support this effort, including United Way of Chester County (leadership and financial support), Legal Aid of Southeastern PA (legal and admin support), ChesCo Paralegal Association (appeal-writing), and Shook-Hardy Bacon (legal research and project advice).  Also noteworthy has been the efforts of Philadelphia Inquirer to publicize the tax fairness issue, and RV Industries to provide free office space for appeal-writing sessions.

Why is this effort needed?  Well, a Mobile Home depreciates just like a car, but, sadly, property tax assessments do not account for that.  We have found that, on average, our mobile-home-owning clients have been paying over three times too much property tax.  Until we can bring about a change to the tax system, the best remedy is for each homeowner to appeal their assessment.  Our help makes it super-easy for the homeowner to appeal.  Are we making the tax authorities angry? No, everyone seems to understand the reality of mobile home depreciation, and to appreciate our efforts to help homeowners achieve fair taxation.