BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
WEST LONG BRANCH — Representatives of a real estate appraisal firm hired to re-assess all properties in the borough will probably not come knocking at residents’ doors this summer.
However, by sometime in October, they can expect to get a letter in the mail telling how much their house, land, business or farm, could sell for on the open real estate market.
The Borough Council unanimously agreed at its Feb. 16 meeting to introduce an ordinance authorizing a contract between the municipality and Realty Appraisal Company (RAC) of West New York to re-assess all of the residential, commercial, and industrial properties this calendar year.
A second reading and public hearing on the ordinance to hire RAC and to make an emergency appropriation of $90,000 to carry out the re-assessment is scheduled for the council’s next regular meeting on Wednesday night.
That appropriation will be figured into the coming municipal budget for calendar year 2005 which has yet to be introduced, a copy of the pending ordinance states.
The reassessment, designed to update the evaluation figures of about 2,500 properties now on file at Borough Hall, is expected to start this summer and wrap up by the early fall, said Charles Heck, the municipal tax assessor.
The resulting new data from the coming re-assessment will then be utilized in computing the property tax rate in the municipal budget for calendar year 2006, he said.
The order for re-assessment of all properties in the borough was ordered last month by the Monmouth County Board of Taxation in Freehold.
All data collected on the properties will be turned over to the county taxation board to either be accepted or rejected in setting next year’s county tax rates, Heck added.
Several months before next year’s tax bills are mailed, every property owner in West Long Branch will be notified by mail as to the latest, most up-to-date reassessment of their real estate, Heck noted.
If a property owner disagrees with the reassessment value, that individual is entitled to an “informal hearing” with the borough tax assessor’s office and RAC representatives, he continued.
On the plus side, when the reassessment concludes, properties in the borough will have been assessed at a full 100 percent of their real estate market value, Heck pointed out.
Using the data gathered during the last re-evaluation in 1999, properties are now assessed on average at an about 63.69 percent of their full market value, he said.
“The numbers in place now are based on the numbers of six or seven years ago,” Heck said.
“The new numbers will be based upon the sales [figures] of properties in 2004 and 2005,” he added.
As to whether or not property tax rates will go up or down as a result of the reassessment, Heck said it is too early to tell.
Usually one-third of all property owners in a community see their tax rates rise, while another one-third gets a lower tax bill, and the remaining one-third sees their taxes stay the same after reassessment, Heck said drawing upon his own experience.
But for now, it is difficult to predict without those figures in hand, Heck stressed.
“The longer [a town] goes without a reassessment or re-evaluation, the harder the impact [on taxpayers],” he said.
The current tax rate in West Long Branch, a 2.8 square-mile municipality and the host community to Monmouth University, is 2.892 per $100 of assessed valuation. The average property assessment in the borough is $230,500 according to Heck’s records.
Homes sales in the borough range from a low of $190,000 to as high as $799,000, Heck has stated.
Because the borough has faithfully updated its data base of properties values on a regular basis, the reassessment might not be such a painful, or as expensive a process as a re-evaluation would be, Heck predicted.
A re-evaluation, unlike a reassessment, involves real estate appraisers visiting and inspecting every property in town.
A reassessment seeks to ensure that properties are selling for their full market value, Heck explained. That process relies greatly on the borough’s tax information and data base.
“There will be a minimal amount of inspection,” Heck said.
Any property owner who undergoes an informal hearing might be asked if RAC representatives can actually inspect the property to settle any disputes, he noted.
Having a reassessment, rather than a re-evaluation done, seems like a reward from the county taxation board for a job well done, Heck stressed.
“Because the town has been spending the money to keep the data base up-to-date, we can do a reassessment, which is cheaper,” he said.
The data base at the borough hall includes detailed information on all properties including classifications of structures, their uses, lot sizes, building sizes, and data on any improvements, additions and the like, Heck explained.
Though town officials had indicated that they knew the reassessment was coming, formal notice from the county tax office to conduct the reassessment was received in the borough clerk’s office on Jan. 21, the ordinance states.