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'Reval' is coming
Residents of Claridge House II Condominiums got a sneak preview of what to expect during Verona’s property revaluation last week.
The condominium’s Political Action Committee arranged an informal meeting with Township Manager Joseph Martin and Appraisal Systems Inc. of Montclair representatives Oct. 23.
Approximately 80 residents attended the event, meant to inform Claridge residents who will be out of town when the process starts. Martin said he hoped to announce a schedule of public workshop dates at Monday’s Verona Township Council meeting.
‘Reval,’ as it is frequently abbreviated, is a New Jersey Constitution-mandated procedure, said Appraisal Systems CEO Ernest F. Del Guercio. Verona has not completed one since 1983.
“[The constitution] lists two very important dictates,” he said. “All property must be appraised at 100 percent of its market value… and the second is that everyone be appraised uniformly and fairly.”
Del Guerico said that tax appeals erode the uniform base of everyone being appraised at 100 percent market value. “If you have one property taxed at 25 percent and the other at 75 percent, that’s a problem,” he said. “You don’t have uniformity.”
Without uniformity, people aren’t paying their fair share, according to him.
To start the process, Verona sent its tax maps to state and county taxation boards for approval, which it received after several months.
That delay worked in Verona’s favor, Martin said. Towns that went through revaluation during last year’s unstable housing market now face properties assessed higher than their market value.
The town also bid out and approved ASI as its revaluation company.
After the township hosts public workshops, Appraisal Systems will send residents a brochure informing them that that employees will visit homes in 2009, Del Guerico said.
Residents can send ASI any information they feel may affect their property values.
“There’s a myth that ‘reval’ is a means by which you raise your taxes,” he said. “No. It fairly distributes taxes.”
The CEO recommended that people allow inspectors in their homes. The law allows inspectors to assess on the higher side if they are not allowed in, he said. Inspectors can visit in early evenings and weekends, he said.
ASI employees will visit Verona’s 5,100 properties determining values using indicators such as: topography; environment; dimensions; and number of bathrooms.
Amenities such as a bathroom in the basement or a fireplace on the second floor might not have as much value as you think, Del Guerico continued.
Inspectors look at wear and tear, economic loss of value, “functional loss” and location, he said. He gave the example of two properties, one near high-tension wires and another near a golf course.
Employees consider home values from three years ago as well, “to know where we’ve been and find the trend line.” They will also use the tax maps to go neighborhood by neighborhood and place values in that perspective.
Field inspectors will determine the property’s worth as of Oct. 1, 2009, for use in 2010’s first quarter taxes.
Del Guerico said ASI would post all preliminary assessments to its Web site, www.asinj.com, prior to making the assessments official.
If a resident disagrees with the findings, they can meet informally with ASI representatives to learn more about it. A dissatisfied resident must wait until ASI makes the findings official.
From there, he or she can file a tax appeal, Del Guerico said, but the burden of proof is on the resident, not the assessor.
“Appraisal Systems is committed, throughout the entire process, to being totally transparent,” he said. “We will post all of our values on the Web prior to promulgation, prior to individual hearings.
“You can know what you’re being assessed at, and you can know what your neighbors are being assessed at as well.”
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