Gov. Official Snooping Around My House

I awakened to the sound of my doorbell ringing about 15 minutes ago. I'm suffering from a massive hangover after a night with Swedish and Norwegian heavy metal bands so I decided not to go to the door. I peaked through the windows to see what was going on. There is/was a white Impala parked out front with gov. tags. After returning from the kitchen to get a glass of water I went to the second floor to see if I could see anyone. There was a man with a tape measure measuring the distance between my detached garage and my house. I ran downstairs to grab my binoculars and quickly ran back upstairs to see if I could see this diagram that he was drawing. This guy had sketched out the shape of my home as well as the location of the doors and windows from what I could see. This guy had on a name tag as well but I couldn't make it out. As far as I know he hasn't done this to any other house in my neighborhood.

I saw a thread here a few days ago about census guys doing gps or something to that effect coming to people's houses. I'm not sure if that is what this is, so if anyone can give me some info as to what is going on I would greatly appreciate it. I'm a little freaked out at this point.

Have you tried asking him? I'd think he'd have a better answer than the speculation you'll get on here.

Person-to-person interaction is a heck of a thing.

Why didn't you just go and speak to him?

He sounds like a building inspector.

Have you done any recent extensions?

I have to agree with the others you should go speak with him... Chances are are good he's a surveyor or from the tax assayer's office... they do come out when a neighbor challenges his property tax... they make a review of nearby homes and if yours is like his they would use yours as a base line

Edited to correct the mistakes my 17Mo old made as she helped answer this question

[edit on 23-5-2009 by DaddyBare]

Property Tax reevaluation folks. The are checking your buildings layout and then looking at your permitted, filed building plan and then send you an new 'improved tax' bill. They must do this in every city every so often to keep their bond rating current. Its also quite legal, unfortunately. Your lucky, at least the guy was out of his car and actually seeing what was what. We had a service in this town where they just sat in their cars and made crap up and really pissed the folks in town off. The service got payed by how much more they could rack up in tax fees for the city. Some folks taxes tripled and they had made no improvements on the houses. They had to go through the audit and appeal process to get the correct tax rates.

Zindo

The only reason I didn't talk to him is because I had literally just woken up and was still out of it. I didn't really want to talk to anybody or have the sun shining in my face at the time. I did go and talk to one of my neighbors. Apparently he spoke to him and said he was appraising my home...why I have no idea. This is a brand new house and I've been in it less than a year. I guess that has something to do with it. Regardless, I find it odd that the guy would be here on a Saturday, especially with it being a holiday weekend. To my knowledge the city works M-F just like most.

reply to post by edgecrusher2199


appraising??? Sounds like a realtor then... Since you just bought your home and the sales price is now a public record he can use yours to estimate similar homes in your neighborhood ... they do works nights and weekends