Lackawanna County Appeals
Please complete this form to receive more information about a potential appeal
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT LACKAWANNA COUNTY TAX ASSESSMENT APPEALS
Why did I receive a letter from you?
We sent you a letter because we specialize in residential tax assessment appeals and have been and are representing thousands of clients throughout Pennsylvania. We identified your property to be among the top assessed properties prior to the new reassessment values being issued for 2026. However, no analysis has been completed on your property for your new assessment as Lackawanna County has not provided us with your new assessment numbers. Therefore, we do not know, at the point when we send you a letter, if your property is a good candidate for a 2026 assessment appeal.
I got my new assessment number in the mail, and it is a lot higher than my last assessment! Does that mean my taxes are going to skyrocket next year if I don’t appeal?
In most cases, probably not. Lackawanna County last completed a countywide reassessment in 1968, with values reflective of 1966. Therefore, your assessed value is the theoretical value of your property in 1966. Because values change dramatically over time, to convert this value to a current market value, you would take your old assessment and divide by what is called the “common level ratio”, and for 2025 annual appeals it was 6.2%. That was the last common level ratio calculated for Lackawanna County. Therefore, if your old assessment was 20,000, your current market value, using the 6.2% common level ratio, would be $322,581 (20,000 / 6.2%)
Your new proposed assessment is based on a July 1, 2024 valuation. Therefore, it is intended to represent the fair market value of your property on July 1, 2024. After doing the calculation in the example above, if your new assessment number is above $322,581, you may see a tax increase. However, this will not be uniform throughout Lackawanna County, as it will depend upon how other properties in your area are reassessed to determine that. Counties, municipalities, and school districts are required to make reassessments revenue neutral, so any tax that they would have collected prior to the reassessment must be the same as after the reassessment. Of course, normal budgetary increases may cause some tax increases, and a reassessment does not prevent normal revenue increases within statutory limits.
I haven’t received my new assessment number in the mail? What do I do?
Lackawanna County states they will be sending out the final new assessment numbers (you likely received a preliminary assessment number, which would be the same as your final number unless you filed an informal appeal with Tyler Technologies and received a reduction) around June 20, 2025. If you do not receive this after June 20th, please contact the assessment office to find your new assessment. It is crucial to know that number before we begin our process. Your old assessment prior to the reassessment is not relevant to a 2026 appeal.
Ok, I’m interested. What is the process?
1. There is a $100 fee up front, unless you have a recent appraisal and/or purchased your property between July 1, 2023 and July 1, 2024, and it was considered an “arms-length” transaction. Tell us you’re interested by signing and emailing the representation agreement included in your mailing to lackawanna@lavangalaw.com, mailing the agreement to Lavanga Law, 40 S 5th Sreet, Allentown, PA 18101 or faxing the agreement to 215-689-3480. If you purchased your property between July 1, 2023 and July 1, 2024, please send a copy of your ALTA or HUD-1 settlement statement. You can pay this fee by check, credit card by writing your credit card information on the representation agreement or asking us to bill you via email by providing your email address on the representation agreement. This $100 fee is non-refundable but creditable against future legal fees. We charge this $100 fee only because there is a considerable amount of preparation work to see if you have a good appeal or not, and many people are just “curious” and may either not be overassessed or may not want to continue with an appeal.
2. Once we receive your signed agreement and $100 our staff whom include a licensed real estate agent, will conduct a thorough and detailed comparable sales report of similar property that sold between July 1, 2023 and July 1, 2024. Similar properties would be properties in your school district that are similar in age, style, size, amenities, etc. After this step, we will share our findings on value by email, tell you what percentage of taxes (as we won’t know the exact amount yet) if we can ultimately prove that value, give a recommendation on the likelihood that your appeal will succeed, and tell you if we recommend or do not recommend that we proceed. We normally recommend that you proceed if our analysis shows that you appear to be overassessed by at least 10% or $50,000, whichever is less. Please note that our report is NOT an appraisal and has no actual value, and is not being sold to you. You are paying for our attorney and staff time only at a flat fee of $100.
3. If your proposed 2026 assessment is less than 500,000, Lackawanna County will accept our comparable sales as evidence and you do not need to get a full appraisal, unless you want one. If your proposed 2026 assessment is 500,000 or more, or if you would like an appraisal to strengthen your case, we would then bill you $500 for the appraisal and coordinate with one of our residential appraisers in NE PA to schedule an appointment with you. The $500 is non-refundable, unless we recommend that you proceed with an appeal because our analysis showed that you appear to be overassessed by at least 10% or $50,000, and the appraisal does not support any reduction.
4. If you did not need any appraisal and you agree to proceed with the appeal, we would file it right away. If you did need or request an appraisal, we would file the appeal when the appraisal comes back if it supports a reduction. In the unlikely event that the appraisal does not support an assessment decrease, we will not file the appeal.
5. After we file the appeal, we attend the hearing on your behalf and represent you in Scranton. We will get a notice of the hearing date and time, and you will be copied on the notice. You do NOT need to attend.
6. Decisions are typically made between several weeks to several months after the hearing. After we are notified of the decision, we will analyze it and determine the following:
A. If the decision is what we expected or close to what we expected, and you received a reduction, you would pay a fee of 50% of the difference between what your taxes would have been before the appeal and what they would be after the appeal as a tax reduction fee. For example, if your taxes are going to be $10,000 and you received a decrease that will make your taxes $8,000, you would have a $2,000 annual decrease, and you would owe a fee of $1,000. ($2,000 x 50% = $1,000). This is based upon actual taxes, (the total of your county, municipal, and school) which will not be known fully until school budgets are passed in the summer of 2026, so this fee will not be due until then. This is different than our fee structure in most counties (most counties our fee is due 45 days from the date of the decision) but because millage rates will not be known right away, we will wait to bill you until summer 2026. You then get a credit for the $100 consultation fee and/or the $500 appraisal fee if requested or required against this fee. Examples of fee calculations are below.
Your taxes were reduced by $2,000 and you did not get an appraisal. You would owe $900 in 2026 ($2,000 x 50% = $1,000, minus the $100 consultation fee)
Your taxes were reduced by $2,000 and you did get an appraisal. You would owe $400 in 2026 ($2,000 x 50% = $1,000, minus the $100 consultation fee and the $500 appraisal fee)
Your taxes were reduced by $500 and you did not get an appraisal. You would owe $150 in 2026 ($500 x 50% = $250, minus the $100 consultation fee)
Your taxes were reduced by $500 and you did get an appraisal. You would owe nothing in 2026 ($500 x 50% = $250 — the $100 consultation fee and $500 appraisal fee is higher than $250)
There was no change of assessment. You would owe nothing in 2026 (but will not be refunded the $100 consultation and/or the $500 appraisal fee)
B. If the decision not what we expected, (this could happen if your case is completely denied or you receive a smaller reduction than expected) we will make an evaluation as to what went wrong, and if we determine the Board was in error and that an appeal to the Court of Common Pleas may result in a $1,000 or greater decrease in your taxes, we will file an appeal to this Court. At that point, we are typically negotiating a settlement with the solicitor for your school district. The school district may order their own appraisal at their expense. You will be informed of settlement negotiations and will have the right to accept or reject any settlement. This process sometimes takes a year or more, but any reduction would be retroactive to 2026, so you would receive a tax refund if you had already paid 2026 taxes. If we receive an acceptable settlement, you would pay a fee based on the same schedule above. In cases where you got a small reduction as a result of Board’s decision, you would get a bill for the small reduction (in this case, $500) and then a second bill for the difference between the reduced assessment after the Board’ decision and the further reduced assessment after the settlement (in this case, another $500).
C. If we get denied, and we determine it is not in your best interest to pursue an additional appeal, or if we are unable to reach a settlement after the additional appeal, we would terminate representation. No fee is due in 2026 for appeals where we achieve no assessment reduction, including filing fees.
What is the deadline?
While in years of a reassessment the deadline sometimes changes and gets delayed, the official deadline to file is August 1, 2025. Therefore, please have the signed agreement back to us no later than July 25, 2025. Representation will not begin until we receive the signed agreement and $100 consultation fee.
I lost my agreement, or never got a mailing from you. How can I apply?
Please fill out the form above and a staff member will send you a new agreement.
I have more questions!
You can email attorney Liam Woods, Esq. directly at lwoods@lavangalaw.com or call at 570-212-9336.