Tag: Tax Appeals

Imagine the situation where a conscientious property owner decides to install solar panels in an effort to reduce his or her energy costs and help the environment. Then, imagine further, that once the work is completed, the local tax assessor increases the property’s tax assessment arguing that solar panels are an improvement to the property, which causes the property’s fair market value to appreciate.

The New Jersey Farmland Assessment Act of 1964 was enacted by the State Legislature to reduce property taxes for farmland and woodland to encourage property owners to keep land in agricultural or horticultural use, rather than develop it. To qualify for this reduction in land taxes, the area of land involved must be not less than 5 adjoining acres and the land must be actively devoted to agricultural or horticultural use for at least 2 years prior to the tax year for which the lower valuation is requested.

Recently, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey affirmed a Tax Court decision finding that a day care center with before- and after-care programs, was exempt from paying real property taxes under New Jersey law.

When a property owner and municipality each have their own expert appraiser, the New Jersey Tax Court has the daunting task of determining (1) whether the property owner has overcome the presumption of correctness, and (2) assuming the presumption is overcome, which appraiser is the more credible expert. Recently, in a decision involving property located in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, the New Jersey Tax Court performed a thorough analysis of two appraisers’ selection and adjustments to comparable sales in a residential tax appeal.

On January 28, 2008, I wrote an article for the New Jersey Law Journal discussing the consequences of a property owner’s failure to respond to a Tax Assessor’s Chapter 91 request. The article discussed the conflicting case law in this area, including the obligation of the owner of non-incoming producing property to respond to a Chapter 91 request.

While property taxes always seem to be rising, there are some property owners who are entitled to reductions in their real property taxes due to deductions which are authorized by State law. Senior citizens who are residents of the State and are of the age of 65 or more years and meet certain income requirements are entitled to a deduction of $250.00 (N.J.S.A. 54:4-8.41).

The average property owner in the Garden State pays about $6,000 a year in property taxes, twice the national average. To make matters worse, New Jersey is facing a projected $3 billion budget deficit for 2008, which will only complicate the legislature’s effort to provide property owners with any meaningful type of property tax reform.

Recently, many municipalities have performed revaluations in order to make certain that all their assessments reflect the current market value of the properties located in their municipality. When a property owner files a tax appeal to challenge a tax assessment after a revaluation, who bears the burden of proving whether the new assessment is correct – the tax assessor or the property owner?