BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer
Oceanport OCEANPORT — A revaluation of borough properties for the 2006 tax year will begin in July, residents were told at a special town meeting last week.
“[The revaluation process] could take several months,” Steven Rubenstein, a principal with Realty Appraisal Co., West New York, the firm hired to carry out the revaluation, said at the June 1 meeting.
“The earliest we would begin is July, but it’s more likely [to be carried out] the end of July into August.”
The borough awarded Realty Appraisal a $159,000 contract in February after receiving a notice from the county Board of Taxation that Oceanport met the criteria that necessitates a revaluation of properties, Councilman Gerald Briscione said.
The borough has not been ordered to conduct a revaluation in 11 years, Mayor Maria Gatta said at the meeting.
Rubenstein told residents that the process will take approximately six months, and he estimated the process will be completed sometime in January or February.
The revaluation will consist of a complete reappraisal of all taxable properties in the borough — commercial, residential and industrial.
A physical door-to-door inspection will be conducted along with an inspection of the market sales over the past two years, he explained.
The physical inspection will take approximately five to 10 minutes and will include collecting information on square footage, the number of rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms, type of kitchen and quality of the house.
“You can tell the inspector anything negative about your dwelling.” Rubenstein said.
“We are going to be looking at the real estate market on what is going on now, not what will be going on at the end of the year.”
Each resident will be sent a letter prior to the arrival of the inspector, according to Rubenstein, who said no appointments will be made.
Five inspectors will be visiting properties Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and will stop back two or three times if no one is home, Rubenstein explained.
Each inspector will be required to show a police-issued identification before proceeding with the inspection.
The 3.7-square-mile borough, which has a population of 5,807, has a current tax rate of $3.18 per $100 of assessed valuation, with the average property assessed at $215,000.
Reevaluations are ordered when the ratio of assessments to fair market value falls below 70 percent, Briscione said.
“The state Division of Taxation conducts an annual sales survey, investigating property transfers that occur within the town,” Briscione said in December.
“Every sale is compared individually to every assessment to determine the average level of assessment in a town. An average ratio is then developed from a sampling of property sales to represent the assessment level within a town.”
The ratio in Oceanport was at 57.25 percent and is currently 51.65 percent for 2005.
The lowest list price a home sold for last year is $315,000 and the highest is $2.1 million.
The purpose of a revaluation is to assess the property at 100 percent of value as of Oct. 1 of the pretax year, Briscione explained.
“The revaluation does not provide additional money to the municipality or school district,” Rubenstein said.
“It redistributes the tax burden.”
Since the last revaluation, property values, especially those on the waterfront, have increased while other property values in the borough have decreased, according to Borough Auditor Robert Hulsart.
He said a revaluation will not change the total tax dollars, but rather equalize the tax burden.
A rule of thumb in the industry is that one-third of properties will experience an increase, one-third will stay the same and one-third will experience a decrease, Briscione said.
“Our revaluations are fair,” Rubenstein said, adding that property owners who feel that their properties were assessed unfairly can file an appeal with the county tax board.