Many residents of Manalapan Chase noticed discrepancies on our 2016 property cards provided by Manalapan Township as part of our yearly tax assessment. The acreage listed on the property cards was correct last year, but now the acreage of many of the lots on the 2016 property cards has increased. We wonder why?
For example, our 2015 property card, dated Dec. 12, 2014, states “Land Desc., 0.69 AC” and in the fourth line “Acreage 0.69.” This is the acreage that has been listed since we moved to Manalapan in 1997. On the 2016 property card, dated Jan. 14, 2016, it states “Land Desc., 0.69 A” and in the fourth line “Acreage 0.850.” Did the size our lot increase in a year?
Many of our neighbors brought the issue to our attention first – they also saw an increase in the size of their lots for the purpose of tax assessment. We prepared a comparison of the lot sizes based on the 2015 and 2016 property cards and the Amended Final Map of our development … that we obtained from the Monmouth County Planning Board.
We speculated that the size of the easements may explain the discrepancy, however, our neighbor’s lot has an easement, but the township did not change the acreage on their 2016 property card from the 2015 property card. By the same token, a homeowner who has no easement saw the size of their lot increase from 2015 to 2016.
We exchanged emails with Alex Worth, the Manalapan tax assessor, about this issue. In the email dated Jan. 14, 2016, Mr. Worth provided a new, different estimate for the size of our lot and stated that “this calculates to a $100 assessed value change.” He did not explain how he arrived at the $100 figure.
Without any explanation to homeowners, Manalapan Township has increased the size of our lots. The tax assessor’s office should have obtained official documentation from the Planning Board to prove their case. That is not the case in our development.
This is quite shocking. We, and our many of our neighbors, have been living here for almost 20 years and now Manalapan Township wants to increase the size of our lots and use this new number to increase our taxes. What is going on? Has Manalapan Township upsized all the lots in Manalapan, or just those in our development for some bizarre reason?
Violet Peterson
Manalapan