By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

About 6,000 Hamilton County homeowners may be paying more property taxes than required because they're not claiming the owner-occupied tax credits.

The average savings would be $186 per year.

Auditor Dusty Rhodes said he's worked to publicize the credits without sending a separate notice to each taxpayer - an expensive and complicated proposition. He puts the responsibility for claiming the tax break on the homeowner.

The exact number of homeowners being overcharged isn't clear. An Enquirer analysis of property tax records found 5,470 owners of single-family homes who list the home as their primary address. The analysis includes only homes purchased after Jan. 1, 2003.

Those homeowners are probably entitled to the credits, but not necessarily. Some may own a home in another county or out-of-state. Or relatives could occupy the property.

One of the property owners is Thomas L. Neyer Jr., who hasn't gotten the homeowner credits since buying his $629,100 East Walnut Hills home in 2001.

Neyer is president of Al Neyer Inc., one of the area's largest builders.

"I am puzzled by why it didn't kick in automatically," Neyer said when asked about why he didn't get the credits. "But by the time I saw the mistake on my tax duplicate, I decided the better part of valor was to let it lie. It was my judgment that while in public office, the less I tinkered with my taxes the better."

If he applies for the credits, Neyer could save $899 a year on his property taxes - plus $94 more if he includes two adjacent parcels he owns.

So why aren't more property owners getting the credits? It used to be that homeowners would get an application for the reduction in the mail each year. After Rhodes was first elected in 1990, he lobbied to change the law.

"It was incredibly expensive, bureaucratic and ridiculous," Rhodes said. The cost to print, mail and process 200,000 applications each year was wasting taxpayers' money, he said, and his predecessor had been cited in a state audit for failing to send them out.

Now, state law only requires the county treasurer to include a notice on the property tax bill that a homeowner can apply for the reduction to the county auditor.

One problem: Most property owners never see their tax bills. Half go to some other address, usually escrow agents - the banks or other financial institutions that collect taxes and insurance as part of the monthly mortgage payment and then pay those bills directly to the county and insurance agency.

Many homebuyers don't see the application at closing because the title agent - not the buyer or the seller - often fills out the forms that transfer property from one owner to another.

The auditor's office says it's doing all it's required to do. And while the office hasn't done much to promote the program recently, Rhodes said it was a high priority in the early 1990s, when he held town meetings around the county to explain property taxes.

"There are thousands of people who have done what they're supposed to do," said chief deputy auditor Roger Silbersack. "We're going to take the remainder and spoon feed them to make sure they're getting a tax break?"

Or, as Rhodes put it: "We're not going to turn the office upside down" to look for people overpaying on their taxes.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com