Assessor: Complaints low
By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer
EAST WINDSOR After delaying the process for nearly four years, the township is in the final stage of its first tax revaluation in more than two decades.
Township Tax Assessor Rich Kline said that while the official numbers won’t be tabulated until the end of February, he estimated the reval could double the assessed value of the township.
That is not necessarily bad news for homeowners, as generally revaluations result in one-third of homes’ values rising, one-third staying the same and the balance going down.
But Mr. Kline said that generalization might not hold this time given how volatile the housing market has been recently, and he would not guess the final breakdown.
”At this point, the inspections are done, and we’re at the stage now where the (reval) company is making decisions on what they’ll do with all that info,” he said. “It’s basically tying up loose ends.”
Residents either already have received notices informing them of the new assessments of their properties or will be getting them shortly, he added.
”So far, we’ve had about 300 people who are unsatisfied,” Mr. Kline said late last week. “From what I’m told, that’s about half of what is normal.”
The revaluation is being done by the West New York-based company Realty Appraisal, and it cost the township $550,000. The firm began its work around March and completed the lion’s share in December, Mr. Kline said.
”The company was very cooperative, and I’m pleased to work with them,” Mr. Kline said. “I’d recommend them to anybody else.”
Mr. Kline added some of the township’s 8,500 properties may have to be inspected again because either the residents living there were not home or they had refused to let the inspectors onto their properties.
”Sometimes you get people who are reluctant to let inspectors in,” Mr. Kline said. “Sometimes, after getting their notice, they maybe realize they should have gone ahead and let them in.”
Assessments for those inaccessible properties are estimates, Mr. Kline added.
Mayor Janice Mironov declined comment about the revaluation, directing questions to Mr. Kline.
The township last had a full tax revaluation in 1989 with a smaller in-house one performed in 1991.
The revaluation initially was ordered by the Mercer County Board of Taxation in the spring of 2006 with a deadline of January 2008. In 2007, that deadline was pushed back another year over difficulties with the township’s tax map.
Then, in 2009, the process was delayed yet again, this time over the unstable housing market.
The current assessed value of a home in the township is $133,719, which is 45 percent of market value.
Revaluation is the task of measuring, inspecting and collecting data for all properties in a municipality, then estimating the fair market value for them. Its purpose is to equitably distribute real estate taxes.
mchiappardi
@centraljersey.com