PRINCETON: Assessment challenges on the rise

By Kristine Snodgrass, Staff Writer
   A flood of area property owners have filed tax appeals in the hope that as real estate values fall, so will their tax bills.
   The number of appeals has at least doubled for Princeton Township, Princeton Borough and West Windsor over the previous year, Mercer County tax administrator Martin Guhl said. The filing deadline was Wednesday, he said, and the appeals were still being counted yesterday.
   Once the appeal is filed, it will be up to the applicants to provide evidence to show that the assessment their taxes are based on is too high, he said.
   ”Most of it, I’m sure, is due to the economy,” he said. “All you read about and hear about on the radio is how property values are down so people think, well, my value is down, my taxes should be down. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.”
   A municipality’s assessor will investigate the property that’s in dispute, and possibly offer a settlement. Otherwise, the property owner has the opportunity for a hearing before the county tax board.
   ”Value is an opinion,” Mr. Guhl said. “You may think your house is worth something different than I think your house is worth.”
   In Princeton Borough, there were 12 appeals filed so far, compared with 5 last year, he said. In the township, 22 were filed, compared with 7 last year.
   Neal Snyder, tax assessor for both the borough and the township, said it’s the most appeals he’s seen in years.
   ”With the economy and everybody’s feeling their house has depreciated, I guess taxes are the number one concern, although they’re appealing their value, not their taxes,” he said.
   He said it is difficult to predict if the appeals will be successful. Depreciation in the real estate market hasn’t been seen since the ‘90s, he said, which in the past made tax appeals difficult to win.
   ”In an appreciating market, it was hard to prove,” he said.
   In West Windsor, 102 appeals had been counted, Mr. Guhl said, compared with 52 last year.
   Township assessor Steven Benner said the number is not that significant compared to the number of homes in West Windsor — 7,800.
   ”Because of the economy, the media overall has heightened everyone’s interest in determining whether or not their assessment is correct,” he said.
   The township over the last two years has been very proactive in adjusting assessments, he said. The Estates of Princeton Junction, Bear Creek, Windsor Ponds and several other neighborhoods have already been looked at, he said.
   ”If (taxpayers) filed within neighborhoods we’ve already lowered, I doubt they’d be that successful,” he said. “Outside of the those neighborhoods, in all likelihood they’ll have some decrease.”
   Plainsboro Township administrator Bob Sheehan said Wednesday that he is not expecting a lot of tax appeals because the township has been proactive in adjusting assessments.
   ”We’re hopeful that the appeals process will not be significant for us,” he said.
   The increase in tax appeals was less dramatic in Montgomery Township. Somerset County Tax Administrator Debra Secola said yesterday that there were 70 residential tax appeals this year, compared to 58 last year.
   Montgomery Township Administrator Donato Nieman said impact on the township will be minimized compared to other areas of the state and country, where the downturn in the economy and real estate values has been worse.
   Assessed values are also not as high as they could be, he said.
   ”We had not done a reassessment in recent years, so the values were not established at the peak of the market,” he said.