Tax appeals burying municipalities. In theory, a town-wide reevaluation should hit everyone equally and a new, shrunken Grand List shouldn’t affect a Greenwich property owner one way or the other. In theory. But in practice, the next tax bills will be based on the value next October 1st and our budget will reflect that. I’ve been highlighting here the many, many sales of houses at their old assessed value, which is supposed to be 70% of market value. If we’ve dropped (at least) 30% in value and the new assessments don’t reflect that, there should be a flood of appeals and, if successful, our town is going to owe some huge refunds. That will cause a painful retrenchment, I’d guess.
UPDATE: Here’s an excerpt from the Time’s article that pught to give every Greenwich resident pause as he contemplates Hartford’s intentions for the Gold Coast:
New Jersey, which has the nation’s highest property taxes, has been besieged by tax appeals from homeowners like Peggy Tombro, whose rambling home in Bound Brook is assessed at a value of $1.8 million but is languishing on the market with an asking price of $1.3 million. Her taxes are increasing to $53,000 a year.
You are just full of good news today aren’t ya? Go have a beer and burger to celebrate our country’s freedom, Christopher.
NY/NJ’s absurdly high income and property taxes are needed to pay for the many >>$100K/yr government workers (and their lavish pensions&benefits) who can’t be easily fired despite poor individual productivity and/or decreased tax revenues….sounds like Detroit’s UAW of ’70s redux
Even more funny when one realizes how lame are public schools and pothole-laced are roads in affluent parts of NY/NJ where most taxpayers live/work
I think the revaluation has been postponed for a year due to lack of comparables to accurately estimate market value. So, we’ll still be working with October 1, 2005 values for a while and the current downturn is moot.
Well Anon1, the return of dolphins to our waters is cheery news, at least.
CF, I may have commented on this in the past.
In early 2008 I pursued an appeal on my assessment because I paid approx 30-35% under the 2005 assessed value when I bought the home in Q4’07. The board of appeals (a friendly bunch actually) challenged me to find comp sales from 2004 and 2005 in my Cos Cob neighborhood that demonstrated that I am over valued relative to sales of that time period. They tell you to run down to the assessors office to use their public terminal for as long as you need in order to pull up sales/tax cards on my neighbors. To my surprise, it was actually a little difficult to find “gotcha” comps. In 2004-2005 (thru 2006) prices were, as we all know, stratospheric. The board was completely unwilling to listen to my arguement that my recent purchase price justifies a valid reassessment amount. What they only care about is missing/wrong information and approx value at the time of the town wide asssessment. Even if I purchased it for what I did in Q4’07 back in 2005, the assessor’s office is going to discard prices that it deems are outliers.
We are going to need more sales volume at the post 2007 prices in order to help the town reassess home values.
And I wonder, are new homes with 2008 or 2009 CO’s assessed at 2005 prices (sky high) or 2009 prices?….mmmmm. It better be the former, otherwise, it doesn’t seem fair to my situation.
Btw, when I referred to assessed value, I was referring to 100% assessed value, not 70%.
I’m appealing my property taxes this year. The deadline in Westchester was June 1st, so a lot of people are going to read that NYT article, decide to give it a shot and then find out that they have to wait until next year.
The lawyer/RE broker who’s doing it for me did some research then told me that I’m assessed for more than any house in my neighborhood has ever actually sold for. What a bunch of thieves.
Unlikely the town can wait out market and will have to conduct revaluation before prices start rising (I believe there is statutory time requirment for completing revaluations). 2nd, expect decrease in Grand List at reval. 3rd, Town either increases Mill Rate or decreases budget (=services and expenditures). Which do you think will happen?
4th, expect Town’s 10+ year run of raising taxes less than 3.5% p.a. to be blown out of water.
Any resident concerned about this should at least communicate to their local RTM members and selectmen. Based on my experience as current RTM member, there are many on RTM and in town who consider raising taxes a better choice than improving efficiency of Town ops and where necessary reducing services, this includes in the schools. During the next budget cycle, RTM members will vote their preferences. Town taxpers may influence the votes of their RTM representatives by communicating their own positions on this debate with these representatives.
As one acutely aware of his family’s expenses and concerns about future income due to current economic climate, and one who considers there must be other families in Greenwich in the same situation, I prefer to find solutions other than raising taxes and increase cost burdern on Greenwich taxpayers. Residents also have a chance to effect what will happen with taxes in the forward budget cycle if they attend public hearings on planned town services, and participate in this little experiment that we celebrated yesterday. A letter from a Greenwich Time reader in that paper today, drives the point home. The author writes about the “unnecessary spending of taxpayer money” as the Town is going “full steam ahead to put in sidewalks despite the fact there is little or no support from taxpayers.” We can point the finger at ourselves if we do not participate in local government and disapprove the results of its governance.