| Author |
Message |
    
Kap
| | Posted on Friday, January 19, 2001 - 11:29 pm: |     |
Rob, HAving asked a question along the same lines off-line, I have been assured that there will be a publicly available document, broken down by neighborhood, outlining the Certified Assesments vs the adjustments made by the township assesor. I expect to see adjustments made throughout the entire town. |
Tomr
| | Posted on Friday, January 19, 2001 - 11:31 pm: | |
Jerry, and my fellow Maplewoodians,
I decided to get involved in this Reval matter, and oversight of our local governance, just recently. I've often said to myself that I should be more active in what's going on in my town, but being comfortable leads to bad results. I thought the taxes on my home were a bit higher than they should have been, but kept saying I'll look into it next year when I have the time.
My laziness is not the fault of anyone but myself.
When I started shopping for a home in New Jersey in early 1994, I very quickly learned that many towns were going to undergo a Reval. Look in one town and a home is assessed at 200K. In another town, a similar home is assessed at 70K. ???? Even if a person looked in only one town before purchasing, and hadn't asked about the basis for taxes,(how could you not ask about the tax basis?) when you had gotten your first tax bill and it stated your assessment at a substantially lower value than your purchase price, wouldn't you wonder what had happened?
My neighbors who have lived here since 1981, or before, are in a slightly different boat. But still, didn't you wonder why similar homes near you were selling at numbers higher, in recent years much higher, than your assessment?
WE knew, or should have known, that this Reval was coming.
WE let this happen to US. I do not know what has been going on at TC meetings over the past year or more, but that is my fault. I have no reason to not believe Jerry when he states that this has all been open to public observation and discussion this past year.
I don't believe that Certified Valuation has handled this Reval properly, but the answer to the problems that may exist is to challenge your assessment if you think it is wrong, not carp about what you didn't know, if the reason you did't know, like myself, was that you were not inclined to ask.
If the fault should lie with the TC, the solution to an incorrect assessment is still not to complain about what the TC did or didn't do. The solution is to challenge your assessment.
I raced sail boats for several years and it became painfully obvious (to this humble crew)that when boats failed to achieve success, the problem could usually be traced to their methodology for dealing with the problem. 1) Scream & shout; 2) Affix blame; 3) Address the problem. It don't work!
OUR Town needs this Reval. None of US should be paying any less, or more, than their share of OUR Town budget.
For the record, I live in the middle of OUR Town and am facing a 20% hit. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Friday, January 19, 2001 - 11:38 pm: | |
Man- give me the abridged version... |
Lah
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 10:07 am: | |
Ffof -
Can you explain to me what a "mill rate" is? I am really trying to understand how my land and "neighborhood charge" (perhaps mill rate??) total up to almost as much as I paid for my house in 1998. If I understood how this stuff worked, I would be in a better position to understand whether the valuation of my property was somewhat reasonable or not. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 2:22 pm: | |
Take your total assessment and multiply by 2.66% (the "mill rate" figured after taking the toatl town budget divided by the new assessment total). If they lower some assessments, then they'll have to raise the %age.
As to a "neighborhood charge", never heard of it. |
Dytunck
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 2:57 pm: | |
Today I received my *re*revaluation from "Certifiable Revaluations". Apparently, my 15 minute meeting with the statue-like representative did some good! Our property's value dropped $20,000. That's over $1,300 per minute. I demand another meeting with them, this time for at least 2 hours!
Seriously, how arbitrary is this? When I bought my home in 1994, a home inspector took several hours evaluating the property, and submitted an 18 page report. CVI waltzed through in under 10 minutes. What if their margin of error was +/- 5%? What if they were high for the entire town by 5%? A 5% error would translate to an over-eval of $110,000,000. From everything I've seen, Certified has been off by more than 5%. |
Melidere
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 3:44 pm: | |
if it was townwide...wouldn't the effect be zero? Remember, this is only about allocating responsibility for the tax. The tax number to be allocated is fixed. |
Jotaese
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 4:28 pm: | |
I just received a letter from Certified dated 1/19 and they show the fair market value to be $9800 below the initial valuation. When I met with them in December, we did not agree to a reduction. So, again this raises questions about the methodologies being seriously flawed.
There are "neighborhood charges", "view" charges for the Golf Course. Does anyone up on Wyoming or Sagamore get a "NY Skyline View" charge? If the process is this subjective, it's not going to pass the sniff test and will have to be thrown out. |
Thomas
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 4:46 pm: | |
Can you tell me where you are finding neighborhood charges, view charges? Is this on the property Data card? I asked for that in December and was told it didn't exist, maybe it does now. |
Maggie
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 4:56 pm: | |
I am really at a loss for words regarding the news I received today in my second letter from Certified. I will, however, attempt to explain.
My husband and I scheduled a meeting with Certified after we received the first letter. We felt that their assessment was a bit high since we purchased our house in June of 1999 and thought that the price we paid, slightly higher than the asking price, was a pertinent "data point" to consider. Although the woman we spoke to did not appear too interested in this information, or the fact that none of the comparable sales (even through 2000) on our block were any where near the new assessment, we left the meeting at least feeling that we had given Certified's rep some additional information with which to review their initial decision. Although we weren't permitted to see the data card on our property, the information she gave us regarding our home and property appointments appeared to be correct.
Now, its not that I expected to necessarily see a reduction in the assessment when I received Certified's second letter today, but I certainly did not expect to see an increase of $31,600. !!! How is this possible? Mr. DeLuca or Mr. Ryan ... can you explain? |
Dytunck
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 5:18 pm: | |
Melidere,
What if the error on my property was zero and yours was 35%? And someone else was undervalued? Like DeLuca? The new flawed multiplier is then to your flawed new assessment, right? The new effect to the town's income is zero, but the net effect to everyone's taxes is that there are still those underpaying and those overpaying. That's what we have now, isn't it? The net result is $400,000 dollars wasted and a lot of bad press for Maplewood.
The attention this matter has received in the press has already lowered the property values that have "quadrupled" since 1981. Home buyers are crossing Maplewood off their lists. |
Kestrel
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 6:28 pm: | |
"Home buyers are crossing Maplewood off their lists."
GOOD!! Maybe things will settle down a little; the bidding wars will stop and prices will stabilize so that accurate assessments can be made? |
Eliz
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 6:36 pm: | |
Maggie - Can I ask what area of town you live in? West, Middle or East? |
Kestrel
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 6:49 pm: | |
I've edited my statement. What I wrote previously was a prompt of the moment thing to be funny and it wasn't. Sorry. I only mean that when things get so hectic and confusing to so many people, perhaps a "breather" of sorts might be a good thing? |
Maggie
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 6:51 pm: | |
Eliz
I live in what, I presume, would be considered the "middle" section of town, but almost as close as you can get to the border of South Orange.
Maggie |
Golden
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 7:19 pm: | |
I received my second letter from Certified on 1/20 and was not happy to see that the reval amount was the same.
When I met with the rep from Certified and went over the spec on my property, it was clear that they had not taken a proper review of the house.
In fact the Certified rep said that I would most certainly have a revision to my reval based on information missed during the walk through.
A neigbor a similar type house and identical lot size, recieved a $10,000 reduction. And they have a full size deck and central air,which I do not have.
While I will appeal to the town assesor, it is clear that Certified is incompetent to render a fair reval.
Interested to hear from anyone else who got the "Certified Treatment" |
Eliz
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 8:39 pm: | |
Maggie - I thought maybe that was so. I also live in the middle near SO. I am wondering if with all the noise being made on the west side of town they are going to try to get away with increasing values over here to make up for the downward revisions there.
I have an appt scheduled with Certified for Tues and think maybe I would be better off not going. |
Mem
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 11:09 pm: | |
OK, here's another example of this screw up. My property and house are smaller than my sister's here in Maplewood, she has central air and I don't, she has a live in attic and I don't, we live around the corner from each other, yet my taxes are going to be more than hers. Since she is my sister, I will be able to bring both our eval paperwork to Certified so they can show me where they made this crazy mistake. Having to do this is utterly ridiculous and is a serious compromise of my time and effort. |
Maggie
| | Posted on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 11:44 pm: | |
Mem
At this point in the process, I think that going back to Certified would be a mistake and even a tactical error, so to speak (I'm assuming, though, that you have already had an initial meeting with Certified and are contemplating going back for a second). Certified's re-review of my paperwork after the first meeting resulted in more of an arbitrary assessment than their initial one did ... hence an additional assessed amount of $31,600. (for no apparent reason) as stated in the revision letter I received today.
I could, I suppose, arrange to see Certified again and give details of some of my neighbors' property appointments that far exceed my own and whose assessments are appreciably less than mine (the new, higher one), but I really don't feel that this would be productive ... not for me, and certainly not for my neighbors. Odds are, that my neighbors' assessments would go up in an attempt by Certified to "make things appear equal and equitable".
In other words, I don't think you could be sure that Certified wouldn't just raise your sister's assessment above yours. Perhaps speaking with the town assessor would provide better results ... just a thought. |
Mem
| | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2001 - 12:32 am: | |
Maggie - I see your point, but if they "arbitrarily" raised the value of your home than you can and should fight it. I can't see Certified going around my neighborhood again raising values just because they made a mistake with mine. |
Mem
| | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2001 - 12:42 am: | |
By the way, I suspect many people in my neighborhood will be contesting their assessments anyway, I know my sister is. |
Jln
| | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2001 - 1:05 am: | |
Here's the problem:
The process is totally opaque. Neither Township Committee, nor Certifed, nor Mr. Galante have taken the time or effort to publicly explain the methodolgies, the definitions, and the assumptions. Until that is done,the process will appear to be arbitrary and unfair. Show up at the meeting at CHS on Tuesday to demand full disclosure. |
Mlgrafing
| | Posted on Monday, January 22, 2001 - 10:39 am: | |
Has anyone been able to determine whether or not the revaluation was suppose to consider sales prices for the last 3 years or just the last year? |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Monday, January 22, 2001 - 11:58 am: | |
Apparently the operative word is "consider" not "statistically average." Certified seems to have "considered" '98, '99, and '00 but gave increased weight to '99 and the most to '00. There is apparently nothing to stop them from doing just that (and one "could" argue that the market conditions should be increasingly accurate up to the present but one wouldn't want to start a riot.) I don't, by the way, think there was anything insidious to this wording on either side. Probably fairly standard contract language for these sorts of things. It would be interesting to see other contracts Certified and other companies have recently done with other communities. Anyone have friends with folks in other communities who might have those kinds of connections?
At any rate, the contract does not sound binding on the concept of numerical average, from the way it has been described by various posters and the TC. That may be why there seems to be little legal basis for breach of contract. As I understand it a breach has to be a very specific violation of a very specific clause in a contract. That clause seems to be way too vague to meet that standard.
Bacata |
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