MANALAPAN — The residents of the Covered Bridge adult community may see their property taxes drop in 2009.
Two years after all properties in Manalapan were reassessed, the 1,557 condominium units in the Covered Bridge I adult community and the 274 condominium units in the Covered Bridge II adult community have had their assessments reduced.
The end result of a lower assessment on a particular piece of property could be a lower property tax bill.
Writing on the Covered Bridge Internet Web site, Sid Leveson, a member of the Covered Bridge I Board of Trustees, said several homeowners filed appeals of their assessment in 2008 and were successful in getting the assessment reduced.
Leveson wrote, “I spoke to the tax assessor months ago, to understand the appeal process and to let her know that we were planning to assist residents in appealing their property assessments.
“A number of other Covered Bridge residents inquired as well, and there were two successful appeals in Covered Bridge last year. Expecting to be overwhelmed by appeals from Covered Bridge that were likely to be successful, the assessor’s office and the Monmouth County Tax Board initiated changes for all of us.”
According to Leveson, “There is an appeal process that enables anyone to get their property assessment lowered if, based on comparable sales, they can demonstrate that the market value (of their property) has fallen below their assessed value. Tax appeals may be made every year.”
He said the appeal process may be easier in a development such as Covered Bridge I where it is easier to show comparable sales and where all of the 1,557 units are, generally speaking, the same. Leveson said there were more than 100 condominium sales in Covered Bridge I last year.
“We did what we could for our residents and I’m glad it worked out,” he said of the possibility that Covered Bridge I homeowners may pay less in property taxes this year.
Leveson said the assessment of the Covered Bridge I condos may be lowered by an amount between $20,000 and $30,000 per unit.M
analapan Tax Assessor Sharon Hartman confirmed that the assessments in Covered Bridge I and Covered Bridge II have been lowered. She said the actual amount that a homeowner could save in property taxes will not be known until after the 2009 tax rates are established later this year.
Hartman said the average assessment for a unit in Covered Bridge I is $113,700 and the average assessment for a unit in Covered Bridge II is $136,100.
Monmouth County Tax Administrator Matthew S. Clark said it is possible for municipal officials to re-examine the assessment that was placed on a property or group of properties during a revaluation.
Appeals by property owners may start to be seen in the year after a revaluation, when property sales help to determine if the assessed value is the true market value, Clark explained.
“It is an excellent assessment practice to go in and look at the remaining units and to adjust them down if that is necessary,” he said.
Clark said a state law gives a municipal tax assessor the right to examine successful individual appeals and to determine whether many more successful appeals of the revalued properties in a particular location might be made that would be successful and cost the town a significant amount of money to deal with. In that case, all of the assessments in a particular area may be adjusted by the tax assessor, he explained.
Contact Mark Rosman at [email protected]