Under the alias “Someone who knows” someone made very helpful comments to the previous post Taxed Enough?? In one of the comments “Someone who knows” stated, “It is amazing if you look at how your tax value is actually calculated.”

I always wanted to know how property taxes are assessed, especially since my property taxes doubled just at a time when I sued one of the members of the Board of Assessors, Earl Johnson, and criticized another, Brad Nobel, in the piece, These are difficult times, need a tax-break?
On January 11, 2011, I submitted a request to the Board of Assessors pursuant to the Public Information Act, click here, to read the letter.
The Board of Assessors convened the same evening and Joanne Higgins, assessor’s clerk, who was attending the meeting called me to inform me that the requested documents were ready.
Member Earl Johnson was absent; he was hospitalized December 6, 2010, with a fractured right hip and is currently in rehab.

Joanne Higgins handed me the following documents in response to my Public Information Request:

Guidelines for Development of a Minimum Reassessment Program,
issued by the Bureau of Local Assessment,
Revised February 2006.
Unfortunately, Joanne Higgins did not hand me the latest version, the version issued just two years ago. The outdated version she handed me was issued five years ago. I provide the readers here the version issued in 2008, as it includes “significant changes” as stated on the front page of the document, click here, to read the Guidelines.
Notification of Certification — Holland.
FIELD LISTING INSTRUCTIONS,
Two Charts for Percent of Completion; Guidelines Vision Appraisal and Patriot Properties.
Taxpayer Revaluation Information, Vision Appraisal Webpage.

I read all the documentation I got in response to my request, but didn’t find all the answers. As there are no clear cut rules (or at least I couldn’t find them), there is a lot of room for error and abuse. The terms “full” and “fair” are mentioned a lot in connection with “cash value assessment,” it is what levying property taxes is all about! I don’t know if you plan to read any of the here listed information and whether you plan to file for abatement.
If you have an unfinished basement, it is very likely that you are taken to the cleaners. On page 4 under the heading “monitoring Sales Activity,” the guidelines recommend:

Local real estate brokers are also valuable sources for such information. Whenever possible, all sold properties should be inspected. This will enable the assessors to verify existing data, monitor property renovations and to identify more readily market trends within the community.

Our Board of Assessors clearly is failing to do this; inequities are the result. A large percentage of sold homes are advertised as homes with a “finished basement.”
Thus, these houses have up to 80% more living space.
However, on the Vision Appraisal Webpage such properties are still listed without a finished basement and their new owners are therefore not paying their fair share. If you have an unfinished basement, your house is consequently assessed too high!
(Examples are, the dwellings at these addresses: 80 Vinton Road, 246 Stafford Road, 151 East Brimfield Road, ect.)

As mentioned above, the Board of Assessors is using outdated Guidelines (at least that’s what they handed me).
The changes incorporated in the new version are described as “significant” on the front page. The changes are in regards to an “abstraction method” to be used in times where there are not sufficient land sales to produce meaningful data.

On page 11 of the document listed under par. 3,“FIELD LISTING INSTRUCTIONS,” you will find a table with the title, “DWELLING BASE SPECIFICATIONS.”
This table lists characteristics of dwellings according to their grade of construction. The grade “AA” is the best grade and “A” the next best, “B” fallows and so forth, “C”, “D”, “E” being the least.
I found a pdf document showing pictures of houses for each grade of construction, click here, and scroll to pages 10 to 30.

On the Property Record Cards in the Assessor’s Office is a system with numbers and not with letters to classify the grade of construction. Higher numbers indicate better grade of construction. The Property Record Cards are not actual cards any longer, they are records of a file in a computer. You can request a copy off your own property Record Card at the Assessor’s office for free, any cards of other properties are $1.00 a piece.
If you care to see an example, here is the Property Record Card of Bradford Nobel. I choose his card just to prove the point that he really does not pay for his finished basement, remember? On the second page, at the bottom on the left, you see the number “0” for Living Area in the basement!

January 19, 2011, Peter Frei

The Mystery of Property Tax Assessment.

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