How to read a property record card
The county's full description of your house, and the single best place to find a winnable error.
The record card is the assessor's file on your property. Most owners have never seen theirs.
Getting it
Ask the township assessor or Supervisor of Assessments, by PIN. Many counties will email it. Some publish it online.
What is on it
Land: dimensions, area, influence factors. Improvement: ground floor area, total living area, storeys, construction type, year built, condition and quality grades, basement type and finish, bathrooms, fireplaces, garage, porches, decks. Often a sketch with dimensions.
How to check it
Walk the house with it. Measure the exterior footprint. Count bathrooms — half baths are frequently miscounted. Look at basement finish, which is the most commonly wrong field there is. Check the garage is counted once and not as living area.
The grades
Condition and quality grades are judgement calls, sometimes decades old and never revisited. If your house is graded "good" and has original 1974 fittings, that is arguable — with photographs.
Why this is the best first hour
Everything else is argument. This is fact, and a fact you can prove wrong needs no comparables at all.