Lake Martin waterfront property owners are in one of three counties – Tallapoosa County, Elmore County, or Coosa County.  If you’re considering buying on Lake Martin, and are curious about property taxes, you would need to research all three counties to cover  of your bases.

There are some similarities, however, in that they all are governed by the state of Alabama’s property tax laws.   The property tax fiscal year in Alabama runs October 1 – September 30 every year. So the property taxes you would pay by December 31, 2007, were generated based on a snapshot of value taken on October 1, 2006.   Here is some info for further research:

Tallapoosa County – Click here for a link to the Tallapoosa County Tax Assessor.  The office number is 256–825–1046.  Click here for an online calculator for Tallapoosa County taxes.  It is a really good tutorial of how to translate assessment and millage rates to the actual taxes you might pay.  They use an example of a $100,000 single family home, not in city limits, which yields a tax of $300.00 per year.

Elmore County – Click here for a link to the Elmore County Tax Assessor.  The office number is 334–567–1184.   Click here for a link to their explanation of rates and here for the millage rates.

Coosa County – At this writing, Coosa County does not have its own website.  Click here for info.  The Revenue Commissioner is Charlie Luker, and is a heckofa nice guy.  His number is 256–377–4916.  Their rates may be a tad different from Tallapoosa and Elmore, but for planning purposes, they are about equal.

Online Research

All three counties employ third party websites to publish their property tax map and owner information.  The online sites are very useful, but take caution. The best way to determine current ownership is to do a deed search at the courthouse. Also, most of the time the lot lines are generally correct. But the best way to know your lot lines is to get a professional survey.

Many times the info online will only give you who was the owner on the previous October 1.   That said, sometimes the counties update a sale as the year goes along. Consider if John Doe owned a property at 10-1-07 and sold on 1–10–08 to Bob Smith. Many times I have seen where the will leave John Doe as the owner but have Bob Smith’s name and mailing address in the mailing address slot. Then when the next year rolls around, they bump John Doe off and Bob Smith is property owner. But this is only a case by case observation.

Need Help?

If you are thinking about buying waterfront property on Lake Martin, and need some help in sifting through all of the Counties, school districts, and tax zones, I would be glad to help you estimate what your annual property taxes might be.  As compared to other states, property taxes in Alabama are pretty low, so hopefully it will be a nice surprise.  Email me, come by my Kowaliga office,  or call my number at the top of this page.  I would be glad to help you out.