May 30th

Hope you all had a nice Memorial Day. We had our B.B.Qued burgers and also brought a dish to pass.
I thought someone said 48 attended.
This morning Del and Bev provided the donuts. A pretty small group of around 20 were there. Then some of us ladies went to water exercises, noticed the hot tub not working.

There was a card this week for Helen and Sam, mgrs. their 16 year old cat died, a very hard decision to make but best for the cat. Also a card for Bill Clement, he had foot surgery the 28th but it wasn't near as serious as first thought. He has to stay off it for 20 days, that will be hard. His Son David and Daughter-in-law, June are here.

We had a big rain Thursday evening.Tthe rain gage by the pool said 1.5 inches. I can believe it, it really came down hard as we had our Social Hour, there was some major flooding in some parts of the Valley. Glad we don't seem to get flooding here. The lawn mower people are going to have to mow about weekly as the grass is really growing.

Martha Millender's Daughter and Son-in-law were here. They left this morning for Iowa.

Applebees to open in 10 days!
I told you all to take a picture of what you are up to this Summer...I did get a few pictures but didn't say what they were doing, but this picture is of my neighbor Lois Kraft with her daughter Jenna and they're near a lake.

This is a neat picture of Marge Reishus with 2 of her Grand sons

When Rollo Fisher saw what I wrote about sending some pictures, he sent me these gorgeous pictures of their Iris's, we can't raise them down here and I sure miss my Iris's we used to have on one side of a garden back in Iowa years ago!

Rollo is doctoring for a skin cancer and Arlene has lost 30% of her eyesight in one eye. Sorry to hear about that!

Friday May 25th

Happy Friday

Orkut Scraps

Harell and Betty Aderton provided the donuts this morning. They will be headed for Mo. for a little vacation soon. 

We have a quieter than usual park this Summer. Almost every evening we have been playing "Tic"
and there is usually a rummy game every morning. quite a few bridge players, and of course our weekly Social Hour on Wednesday is well attended. We are going to a street get-to-gether tonight, and a Memorial Day potluck is coming up.

 The park looks very nice, the guys keep it mowed and trimmed so nice and also cleaning the gutters in front of everyones mobiles makes a big difference in the looks, which I saw Alex has been doing, but it's to get ready to overlay some of the streets, the pool is looking great and Roberto is doing a fantastic job. 

There are no cards up to sign, Bill Clement is to have a foot surgery this week, other than that I haven't any news concerning sickness.

The Asst. Mgrs. are on vacation now.

Gas prices average around $3.36 and Walmart has their $.15 off per gallon all Summer with your Walmart card.


Send me a picture of what you are up to and I will post it here!!!!!!!! I would love to see some pictures of some of you farmers out in the field on your John Deere tractor!!! lol or working with your hogs or cattle! A picture of your vacation or family get-to-gether would be neat!
I understand John Geer is going on a 50 mile trip on tractors? What's that all about...love to have some pictures of that!! Just heard from Mary Lou...a picture of the hayride they have every year out to the Son's farm and a picture of Son, Kurt on his Dad's tractor, he still uses it on the farm...neat!

Late this last Fall we got a visit from our former Mgr. Lloyd LaFond (Speedy) and wife Doris. Speedy had a dream of some day owning a Ranch and raising cattle, well, he is living his dream and loves living on his Ranch in Central Texas Hill  Country near the town of Cherokee. They raise registered Texas Longhorns. 

They said they would love for people to stop by.

That's it for now, have a good week!

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Friday May 16th

We have had a most unusual week of weather, starting off with some much needed rain, and followed by a cool front, we have had morning lows of 60 and highs in the low to mid 80's, absolutely beautiful! No humidity and gentle breezes. but this weekend temps are to be upper 80's lows in the 70's and winds pick up again.

The Johnsons are here, they bought Doris Davis's mobile#209. They are here for a month or so.

There are no cards up to sign right now. Phyliss Mobley had fallen and she got a hip replacement. The last I heard she was up walking!

Doris Armistead and her Daughter Carmen provided the donuts this morning. Doris learned to play "tic" last night!!! And also Diane Bernier in 404 has been playing.

We are planning a Memorial Day cookout. Argos will fire up the grills and we will bring a dish to pass.

That's it for now

Last note on assessment situation

From John Norris:

We have two choices.

1. Do nothing and accept the tax increase. Pay the higher tax and complain.
2. File a formal protest. The easiest way is to use the online protest on the Hidalgo Tax Appraisal District Web site. Next complete the form 50-132 which was included in you Tax Appraisal increase letter. Same form as the online form.

Jerry McAninch sent me the following email:

Thanks for all your work John, wanted to let you know I filed a protest on my own and got it reduced  almost $ 4,000. Several phone calls later we finally agreed on the lower amount.
Carol and Jerry  #233      You may share this if you think it would help someone.

While I do not agree with the increased value assigned by the tax district, the data I put together on the 18 sales or offers for sale in my last message indicates the values are up 20 to 25% from the 2013 appraised value. Based on this data I have filed a protest and agreed to a increase of about 20%. I did this via the online protest. I have not had a acceptance or counter offer at this time. I just filed yesterday.

The online reply has assigned a date and time for my protest. I will not be going down however if we do not agree on a new value informally I will send in a affidavit of the fact I used in my protest. The data published by the state of Texas on protesting tax appraisals say you can appear in person, by affidavit, or by agent.

An affidavit (/ˌæfɨˈdeɪvɨt/ A-fə-DAY-vət) is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affidavit or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public or commissioner of oaths.

Bottom line. Accept the increase and do nothing. Come to a percentage increase you can live with and file a protest agreeing to that amount.

If you want to spend another $20 you can get a NADA guild value for your Mobile. This is way below the appraised value but does not value the outside such as carports, awnings and concrete. The site is NADAguides.com go to manufactured homes.

John Norris

from Donna

Hidalgo county needs the tax $...!!!???

To mobile owners

From John N. to all mobile owners

I have to pass on the bad news. Tim Wilkens the tax agent I was working with has not returned any calls or emails for the last week. His office says she has given him the messages so I guess he does not want to represent the park. I have not been able to find another tax agent in the hidalgo county area that will answer the phone or return messages. So unless someone else can find someone, and we are running out of time, I guess we are on our own.

Writing letters to the Hidalgo Appraisal District will probably not do any good unless there is incorrect data on your property such as age, size, etc. Remember they are using some new data base as to the market value of our Mobile home. They created the data base. They are trying to provide an appraised value high enough to provide the taxes each entity is trying to reach.

If you want to protest the appraised value file a formal protest using form 50-152. One should have been included in your letter of appraised value. This protest will go to the Appraisal Review Board. This is a independent Board appointed to review the value of you property.

Provide data in step 4 of form 50-152 based on facts as much as possible. From the data I have been able to put together all the Mobiles that have sold or are currently for sale in the park have sold/priced above the 2013 appraisal value for the property. I will provide the data below without addresses as some of you have no problem with everyone knowing the price you paid or sold for, however some prefer the information be private.

year	size	2014 value	Year Sold	sold	2013 value	Over/Under 2013	Percent Change
1979	14x52	15057	14	10000	9035	965	10.68
1980	14x60	15972	0	15000	9456	5544	58.63
1981	14x50	17171	0	18000	9668	8332	86.18
1983	14x44	14954	0	12500	14954	-2454	-16.41
1983	14x66	21927	9	17500	12395	5105	41.19
1983	14x66	21973	14	15000	11621	3379	29.08
1984	14x56	14370	0	13000	9065	3935	43.41
1984	14x56	14353	0	12500	8796	3704	42.11
1984	14x48	19862	12	12000	12654	-654	-5.17
1984	14x56	14353	13	12500	8796	3704	42.11
1984	14x56	14370	14	10000	9065	935	10.31
1984	14x60	18002	14	12500	11383	1117	9.81
1990	14x60	22709	14	17500	14606	2894	19.81
1993	16x66	32334	9	21000	21398	-398	-1.86
1991	14x64	22971	14	15900	15358	542	3.53
1992	16x60	28223	12	22000	14242	7758	54.47
1998	16x52	39239	12	40000	22938	17062	74.38
1999	14x76	47748	14	41000	28117	12883	45.82
2002	16x66	40058	14	31500	29821	1679	5.63

I hope the is readable.

John Norris

jdnorris811@att.net
817-282-2472

Friday, May 9th

We have had a week of pretty nice weather here. About 5 drops of rain yesterday...hoping for a decent shower but doubt if we will get any.

Bobby and I provided donuts this morning,around 22 came. Not bad as several people left for a few weeks.

 We decided a potluck would be nice for Mother's Day.

This last Wed. for Social Hour we had 27.

There are a couple cards up to sign, Harold Sanstra had a 4 by-pass surgery, he is in #82 (his Son Gene mows quite a few yards now) Also a card for Sutherlands, her Brother died, she has gone to the funeral. 

Irene Quail has been in Houston, for removal of a plate and screws, alot of infection but now with the metal out we hope she heals faster, they're hoping to leave today for North Carolina.

Sharon Barksdale said we should name the 99's "Barksdale Acres" she said just Darrell and Bellva in their big motor home and Brian and her are the only two out there. She said Brian is getting around but I haven't seen him out for awhile.

We have a new cell phone no. it is 956-532-6268.

Dorie Rosendahl is taking care of the cards, or call the office or me, and we will get the info to her.

A note from John Norris

I have been gathering data on fair market value of Mobile Homes in Rio Valley Estates as you know.

After talking to the Appraisal District and other I would like to make the following recommendation.

We all use a Tax Consultant from McAllen who has been used in the past by a owner in Rio Valley Estates successfully. The firm is Wilkins and Co. Mr Wilkins will only represent Mobile Home Owner as a group where they are in one location. Because of the time remaining he request one person head up our group and provide him with the name and address of each person requesting him as their agent. His fee is 40% of the tax savings he can provide. Ex. If your tax for 2013 was 400 and the 2014 tax is 800. If he gets the tax reduced to 600 you would owe him $80.00. If he doesn't save you anything you don't owe anything. Once he has the name he will prepare all the forms required with data filled out and send them to each person at there home mailing address. He said he would not represent anyone who has filed a protest already, although if you have filed the protest he can provide a form to withdraw your protest and file a new one in the group. He stated that it was much easier to have all the protest together to allow him to use the same data to get the fair market value reduced.  

I will act as the one who forwards all the names of Mobile owners who would like to pursue this approach. Any amount he gets the tax reduced will be for more than one year unless the tax district tries again next year, and with his 40% and our tax for the year we will be out the same money this year and less next year.

I will not be paid anything as a referral fee, I will just act as a go between.
If you would like to join in this group please contact me by email by next Monday May 12 in order to get the names to Mr Wilkins.

If you know anyone who does not read this blog, please contact them to pass this information along.

John Norris
Lot 171
jdnorris811@att.net

Friday May 2nd

Happy Friday

Orkut Scraps Martha Millender and Opal Wilson provided the donuts this morning. I would say close to 30 showed up!
Doris Davis is loading up and getting ready to leave the park. She said she has really loved living here and will miss all of us.

We have had a cold pool for around 2 weeks, but it's fixed!! Would you believe it was almost too cool here today to even go to the pool!!! We are having nice cool weather here, but next week it's back to hot! The cool breeze today felt soooo good.
We had a really good turn out for Social Hour this Wednesday, I made a Hummingbird Cake, and there was some good "stuff" besides!20 or so came.
The City mowed the field on the South side and are bailing it. Finally! There's talk that the school bought the land to the West of the park, don't know forsure yet.
I haven't seen Anita Farley out yet, Ken says she's on Oxygen full time for now.
Everyone talking about the high assessment statement from the tax office, personally I feel you need to fill out and send them the paperwork and mail it to them if you feel your assessment was way out of line.

This letter is from John Norris regarding the tax assessment letters

To Rio Valley Estates Residents

We just received our 2014 Tax appraisal and was shocked by the increase in appraised value. I plan to protest this appraisal. I contacted the tax appraisal office to ask about the method used to determine the value. I was told they had updated their cost tables and updated the current sales records to show the current market value of mobile homes in Rio Valley Estates.

I analyzed 173 of the mobile homes in Rio Valley Estates and found the following:

The average increase in appraised value was 62.5%

The largest increase was 111.38%

The smallest increase was 29.51%

The total appraised value of Mobile Homes in Rio Valley Estates increased by $1,718,213.00.

I did not analyze the increase in actual taxes.

On our Mobile Home 171 the old appraised value was 21,398.00 the new value in 34,591.

I ran a NADA Guide value on our Mobile Home and based on good condition it returned a value for the Mobile Home of 12,775. This included a value of 4,060 for added features such as washer, dryer, refrigerator, dish washer and porches.

What I would like to do is compile a list of Mobile Homes that have sold in the last three years in order to have actual sales to use in my protest. I can only do this if residents who have bought or sold would be willing to provide the information. I need the price of the sale, the date of the sale (about), and the lot number. I can look up the age and size from the tax office.

I would be glad to share this information with anyone who plans to protest the appraised value of their Mobile Home. This information is needed by the 15^th of May as the protest of the appraised value must be filed by the end of May.

Anyone interested in helping in this project can contact us at jdnorris811@att.net. If you have not sold or bought but have information on other Mobiles that have sold may also provide the information. If you plan to protest the appraised value and need information let me know and I will help in any way I can.

Thank you in advance. The only way we can get this back under control is mass protest of appraised value.

John Norris

817-282-2472

jdnorris811@att.net.