Grieving your tax assessment
We have been contacted recently by former clients who live in the Town of Guilderland. This isn’t surprising because Guilderland is going through a town-wide reassessment, which all communities do periodically and they have recently notified all property owners of their tentative new assessment. While it’s theoretically possible for a property’s new assessment to be LOWER than the old one, it’s more typical for it to be HIGHER, which can be cause for alarm. Hence the phone calls and emails from clients. Even if your community is not going through a reassessment right now, this is the time of year when the tax roll is being formalized so we figured it’s timely to review the process.
All municipalities conduct reassessments periodically; it’s their way of assuring that properties are accurately valued so that the tax levy is equitably distributed across all the residential and commercial properties. New York State recommends reassessing every 3-4 years but given it is an expensive and arduous process, most localities go longer in between reassessments. The assessed value of your property can, and does, differ from the appraised value (the amount a bank believes a property is worth) and the market value (the price a property will fetch on the open market). An assessment is the dollar value the municipality has assigned to a given property. Unlike a bank appraiser or a real estate professional, the tax assessor does not enter your home and instead relies on external data to determine value. If done correctly, your home should be assessed at the same amount as other homes of the same size/age/location.
Once your assessment is determined, it cannot be changed until the town undergoes another full reassessment or unless you have completed major renovations that substantially change the value of your property. This can be good news for home buyers as they will sometimes come across homes that are assessed at lower than they paid to purchase the property. While it won’t last forever, they will enjoy the benefits of the lower assessment until the next reassessment rolls around.
As a property owner, you have the right to grieve your tax assessment if you believe it is unfair. This can be done once a year, in May. Municipalities post the tentative assessments on May 1st for all properties and each year Grievance Day is the fourth Tuesday of May (May 28, 2019). On that day the Board of Assessment Review (BAR) convenes to hear all requests for modifications. The BAR is an independent body comprised of community residents with expertise in valuing property,
If you are interested in grieving your assessment, you should check out New York State’s website for information. The first step is to confirm your current assessment and determine if it is too high. Keep in mind that this isn’t about whether you think your taxes are too high (believe me, most of us think our taxes are too high). Rather it’s about whether you can prove that your home is unfairly assessed when compared to other properties. Your municipality’s tentative assessment roll is public information and available on May 1st. That’s a great resource for determining what other homes like yours are assessed for, though you can also utilize recent home sales to justify a change in your valuation. The next step is to contact your town’s assessor and request an informal review, as that can sometimes resolve the issue. If it doesn’t, then you can file a formal grievance. You can complete the forms yourself or you can hire an attorney who specializes in it to help you. Your documentation will be reviewed by to the BAR and they will issue a decision. If the case is not resolved to your satisfaction, you can proceed on to a judicial review, called a Small Claims Assessment Review (SCAR), which is the lowest cost option or you can pursue a tax certiorari proceeding in State Supreme Court, but for that you definitely want legal representation. Like all things government related, it’s a process and it’s important to be prepared and to have facts to support your argument.