Q: Thank you very much for your recent story on the six ways to reduce your property taxes. You mentioned that there are individuals and companies that specialize in appealing property taxes for homeowners. Some of them will charge you a percentage of whatever savings you obtain in the process. Can you recommend a company that can help me reduce my property taxes in Georgia. I live in Atlanta. Or tell me how to find a company to help in appealing my property taxes?

A: The policy of the column is to not provide individual recommendations. As you can imagine, it would be tough for us to stay on top of lawyers, Realtors, and lenders nationwide.

However, we did a quick online search found several companies in the Atlanta, Georgia area that will handle your real estate tax appeal by paying a filing fee of about $99 and paying the company you hire a contingency fee of about one-third of the savings for the first year as the fee.

You can call your local or state Bar Association and ask for a referral from them. You can ask your neighbors and see if they have hired anybody that they have liked and have been successful in appealing their residential real estate taxes.

You should know that most tax assessor government agencies have websites with information you can use to appeal your own property’s real estate taxes. You might find the process cumbersome, but with a bit of time and effort, you might be able to appeal your own taxes and save the entire amount of the fee. In some cases, those same assessor offices have tools online or in person at their offices to assist homeowners in the tax appeal process.

Finally, you can try to see if websites like Angie’s List or others have listings for people in your area. If you have a friend who is an attorney, you might find that he or she knows someone that works in the area of tax appeals. Those are some of the ways to find a person to help you out.

[ad#in_content_1500]But once you collect a few names, make sure that you investigate those folks further to be sure they are reputable, and don’t have complaints filed against them with the attorneys general office, the Better Business Bureau or the state bar association.