| Author | Message | ||
     Uqbar |
Bobk, Why do you hold the town leaders responsible for an upsurge in one area of the real estate market? For good or bad, that's the basic fact and if the numbers fall that way, I don't see how the law can change the marketplace. But I may be wrong. In the meantime, I'm house shopping, so if you do see "all those for sale signs" please clue me in. | ||
| Gerardryan |
Bobk: as Mayor DeLuca posted here on Feb 23, the reports are available at Town Hall and both branches of the library. The report is a brief on the legal details of revals in general and this reval in particular. It contains facts and case citations about revals. If you've not read it, I don't understand how you can be critical of it. | ||
| Townie |
Ugbar, If you hurry, there is still one house for sale on Durand ($549K asking), but it's been getting a non-stop stream of shoppers. There was another Durand house on the market last Sunday, but I hear it's already been sold for over it's asking price of $569K (it's on the corner of Wyoming). Bobk, I'm not positive I've got this right, but it was my understanding that the town hired Haushalter to give the TC a legal opinion about whether Certified had complied with its contract. I had the impression that this was done because at least one member of the TC wanted to sue Certified as well as many residents (I was interested myself, actually). The legal advice came back: You won't win. I've always been of the mind that if the TC could have sued Certified to recover money, they would have. I mean, it certainly would have been the politically popular thing to do. Whether or not the town could sue Certified is a different matter than whether you can sue the town, but I don't think Haushalter's brief addresses that issue in any form or was prepared to advise the TC on that possibility at all. On a different note: People walking home from the train the other night were discussing suing the town as a group, and the gist of the discussion seemed to be that it, for these people at least, they honestly thought that the mere fact of a lawsuit would put political pressure on the TC to reverse itself. I'm sure other people have different reasons for talking about a suit, but I was taken aback that these people apparently thought this was purely a political fight in the sense that if they just kept pushing the TC hard enough, it would finally cave and reverse the reval and go back to overtaxing other residents! In my view, suing on that basis is money down the drain. If this reval is tossed, another one will have to be done, and it will turn out exactly the same! Other people who I hear talking about a suit just seem to be so angry, they want to sue. And still other information I've seen about collecting money for a class action suit has seemed not quite ready for prime time. So I think the advice to look over Haushalter's legal analysis before spending money to sue isn't just self-interested advice from those of us disinclined to join the suit -- and you are right to demand it be somewhere easy to find, and more than just summaries were promised. I thought at one point there was a question that needed to be resolved about whether the reports could be made public in their entirety because possibly some of the material in them is confidential, I assumed to protect the privacy of homeowners. I hope it all can be made public, but if not, I hope people respect any balance struck between every person's right to see what's relevant to their own legal claim and the rights of the rest of us. Unfortunately, not everyone can be trusted to behave responsibly with private information regarding their neighbors. kathleen | ||
| Gerardryan |
Kathleen: you are correct as to the reasons for, and the focus of, Haushalter's report. However it does say a lot about the process of tax appeals and makes some comments about lawsuits and class action suits, which I think folks ought to read before spending their $$ on lawyers. The question that needed to be resolved on the reports was, is there anything that might need to be redacted to protect someone's privacy? The day after the meeting, that question was answered in the negative, and both reports were made available in their entirety. This was posted here by Vic as soon as that happened. | ||
| Jennie |
Townie: You're surprised that this is a political battle? Really? Is political necessarily a bad thing? Isn't it political to enforce "fairness", whatever your own interpretation of that is? | ||
| Bobk |
Mr. Ryan: I looked for the report at the main library last Saturday and did not locate it. I will check again. Thank you. Townie: The origianl decision by the TC was to have the Reval reviewed by a assessor. The end result was that the review was primarily a legal one as would be filed in a lawsuit. In effect the TC hired legal council for their viewpoint. The methodology, at least during the verbal reports was never questioned. I am not in favor of the law suit if it is for political reasons. If it is based on errors made by the TC, the Township Assessor and CVI then I am in favor of it. I have major issues with how neighborhoods were determined, land values being figured differently in different parts of town (the excess land value issue) and the fact that varied condition of dwellings was not factored into the formula as much as it should have been. I don't like paying taxes based on an assessment $50,000 over the market value. | ||
| Dave |
Bobk: Could this be the problem re: report at library? http://66.33.27.70/discus/messages/1/2326.html?981857124 | ||
| Alidah |
BobK: I live in the area you are talking about. My neighbor got 17K reduction based on the reasons you're talking about. My wishful thinking is that we haven't been notified about our reduction yet because we turned in our review form the day of the deadline. We're going to try to get Galante on the phone and ask if he did give our area a blanket reduction. | ||
| Bobk |
Dave: No that was quite a while ago. I was actually at the library reviewing the Assessor's Manual when the missing pages were discovered. In any event, thanks for trying to be helpful. I must have missed the report Mr. Ryan mentioned in the reference room. I just looked around as the librarian wasn't there at the time. Alidah: We got our revised assessment notice and there was only a minor reduction, which was based on remeasuring our home. The issues mentioned in my earlier posts were not addressed. I hope that you are luckier on this subject than I was. | ||
| Townie |
Bobk, Maybe we're actually talking in the same ballpark here, and you just have a particular view of the results, but I've been under the impression that DeMartin Schwartz is an assessment firm (real estate appraisers) and it produced a separate report from Haushalter. So I would expect to find two separate reports at the library, but maybe they're put together. But Haushalter said there was a separate report: http://66.33.27.71/forum/ Also, I didn't think you were in favor of a law suit for political reasons. I was reporting on another conversation. I get the impression there is more than one lawsuit in the works, because one of the most prominent parties looking to sue seems to be on the outs with others who've been very angrily protesting the reval. I guess I have 2 questions regarding a lawsuit: 1) Can one be filed before all administrative appeals have been exhausted? 2) If the reval was based on errors made by the TC, the Township Assessor and CVI, whose taxes will go down even if the lawsuit is won? Isn't it the case that, as long as you live in town, the cost of defending the town against the lawsuit and the costs of doing another reval will be paid by you in taxes, as well as the private costs you pay to sue? I can't figure out who is going to "win" this lawsuit. kathleen | ||
| Bobk |
Kathleen: 1/ I am not a lawyer, so I do not know when a lawsuit can be filed. My feeling, however, is that once the Township certified the results to the county action can be taken. 2/ I don't get the part about "whose taxes will go down". To the best of my knowledge only Mayor De Luca of those on the TC is in the position where is taxes will decrease significantly and I in no way believe that this is why he is in favor of the reval. 3/ Yes the taxpayers will have to bear the cost of defending any lawsuits that arise out of the reval. My guess is that they have already engaged Mr. Haushalter in that regard, or have at least discussed the possibility of engaging him for the appeals to the tax board and in any lawsuits that may arise. 4/ Mr. Haushalter's verbal report at the Wednesday evening TC meeting sounded a lot like the opening arguements in a trial. "Basically, "my client and its agent (CVI) did an "excellent job" and acted with great moral courage, etc, etc." 5/ DeMarten Schwartz has a close relationship with Mr. Haushaulter and has worked with them often in the past. Check this out using one of the web search engines. My suggestion would be: Google.com. 6/ Even if lawsuits are not filed a great number of appeals are going to be filed and they have to be defended by the TC. Remember that the Township has to pick up the School portion of any reductions, so this can be very expensive for the town. Any tax reductions that result is money that is not budgeted by the town. On appeals, the tax rate isn't increased for the town as a whole. Ouch. This money will have to come from somewhere. Maybe the Pool Fund and the Library Trust Fund? | ||
| Eb1154 |
Is there anyone who received a reduction on their reval because they lived on a busy street? I heard Mr G. say that there were reductions for certain streets i.e. Wyoming Ave., Ridgewood Rd., and Jefferson Ave. did it actually happen? If so how much of a reduction did you get? | ||
| Bobk |
My recollection is that Wyoming didn't get a reduction. Ridgewood and Jefferson did along with, I believe, Prospect after the rather well done petition was presented a couple of weeks ago at the TC meeting. I may be wrong on this. I believe that the reduction on Ridgewood was $50,000 although, again, I may be wrong. Why can't my house be on Ridgewood instead of one house off? Curses foilded again. | ||
| Townie |
Bobk, My question about "Whose taxes will go down?" maybe should have been put as "Whose assessments will change?" I've looked at the assessments database and the numbers that I saw there reflected what I would have expected townwide, and I would have thought by now that all the people who were looking for large flaws in CV/Gallante's numbers would have found them by now. I guess you and I see something different in the Haushalter/DeMarten Schwarz process and resultant report (which I've not read). I don't know the difference between the costs of defending the town against lawsuits as opposed to appeals. I thought that the Reval FAQ said that the annual costs of dealing with appeals had been running the town about $27K, but I could wrong about that. I couldn't follow your point about the schools budget. But the basic puzzle is this: Is the point of the lawsuit to get the reval re-done? If so, don't you think another reval will produce the same numbers, therefore the same tax bills? What do you foresee as being the positive result of a suit? k. | ||
| Joancrystal |
People aren't suing over the numbers. Just how the numbers applied to them. Some people are still convinced that the system is not being fair to them. The way in which land values were calculated for properties larger than the the minimum zoned for in some areas is still leading to confusion. People are also questioning quality factors which rose one or more levels on some homes since the 1981 reval, deterioration compared with other houses in their area, etc. Then there is the question of recent site value adjustments for traffic and view. Some groups may feel that such reductions should also aply to them. Others may seek reductions based on other factors such as being in the flood plain, being under a major air trafic lane, too close a proximity to the railroad, being too near or too far from a school, etc. If these factors were applied differently, more consistently (?), some people feel the numbers would come out differently for them. As long as people feel that way, there will be appeals and law suits. | ||
| Bobk |
Actually I took Mr. Ryan's advise and reviewed the Haushalter/DeMarten reports at the library, now that I know they are there. The reference room librarian keeps them under lock and key! The Haushalter report is basically a legal brief covering the history and law factors on NJ tax law. He comments that the tax courts do not look kindly on mass suits in reval or reassessment matters. The DeMarten report basically rehashes the process used by CVI. It does, however, include some interesting tables on the so called twin sales, etc. None of the points mentioned by Joan Crystal were mentioned, except for the excess acreage charges where he did not mention the fact zoning rules were used in most neighborhoods. He only showed the cutoff point in percentage of acreage numbers. To be honest I really don't know what I am going to do. I know that my street is being overassessed based on the neighborhood definitions, the lack of comparables used, etc. I know I am being overassessed by $25k to $50k based on the condition of our house. I look up from the monitor and see larger houses one hundred feet away on larger lots assessed for a lot less than we are assessed because they are on a main road. But, I guess the TC has spoken, so there isn't much anyone can do. | ||
| Lydial |
BobK - there is something people can do; for those with concrete errors (i.e., large SF mismeasurements) you may take it to the county appeals court. My house is overassessed on my property record card by 330 "phantom" feet (On a 2100 SF home that's a lot of extra SF!). I'm going to hire an independant appraisal service to measure and document my SF ($300 or so out of pocket), pay my $25 appeal fee and start the county appeals process. I had hoped the assessment review process would save me the extra time and expense but sometimes life isn't fair. I still think the reval process was flawed, I have no idea if a new reval would result in anything more accurate. Since it ain't gonna happen, I'm not going to spend much time on "what ifs" anymore! When it's all over I'm going to cross "revaluation" out of my dictionary, and stop measuring my house and go back to living there. | ||
| Mtierney |
Can't seem to get an answer to my question! After this fair REDISTRIBUTION process is over, will those eastsiders who got huge tax reductions see their taxes now go up as the result of all these rampant adjustments? I did not qualify for an adjustment (except the $10G mystery reduction I posted earlier) so will I see my taxes climb as a new rate goes into effect? When all the law suits get going, will the cost of the litigation be put on the backs of ALL citizens? A slightly lower assessment times a higher tax rate equals HIGHER TAXES! | ||
| Nakaille |
Mtierney: my reval figure stayed the same from the beginning of the uproar to the present. I don't know about HUGE reductions. Mine would be about 1,700 if the tax RATE stayed the same, which it won't. So I'm guessing it will end up being about 1,500. Does that seem HUGE to you? (Unless you multiply it over the past 9 years but we're not going there, right?) Here's my impression, although I haven't gone over the database/spreadsheet to know for sure. The reason there are few HUGE reductions (except for those poor folks on Boyden Parkway whose overpayment was truly outrageous) is that there are a lot more houses per square mile on the "east " side of town compared to the west or even middle of town. (That's one of the factors that makes the other parts of town more desirable from a real estate point of view) Therefore, there are more homes numerically speaking getting smaller reductions balancing out the relatively few homes getting HUGE increases. Can any of our number crunchers verify this perception (or debunk it?) My impression is that the entire town will bear the costs of any lawsuits/litigation against the TC. Whether the litigants win or lose. In other towns (I think Belleville or another nearby community just went through this) the cost comes out of the municipal budget. And if it eats up a chunk of the budget, then either services have to be cut or higher taxes have to be paid. Which would you choose and what would you advise your neighbors planning lawsuits to do? Bacata | ||
| Mtierney |
"I have read these posts for weeks now and in a very limited way participated in the on-line discussion. Cutting through all of the figures and maps and charts, etc. may I please ask you one simple question? How in good conscience can you or anyone in the position to impose the same expect a family raising children to incur an increase in their yearly budget of $3,000 to $6,000 a year." This quote from Interalia has stuck in my head ever since reading it. He or she hits the nail on the head with little excess verbage. Now one of our esteemed TC leaders - in another post - referred to the "dent" the reval will cause in monthly budgets. "Dent"!!?? More like a crater. That is the crux of the situation. The TC listened to everyone's anguished arguments, but still went ahead and certified this reval. Are these TC members our representatives? How could they have disregarded so many people - just the 900 who filled out those reval appeals would have been a sufficient number. |
