Your property tax bill is your assessment multiplied by the tax rates. You can’t appeal the rates, but you can challenge the assessment if it’s too high. Outside New York City and Nassau County, the process follows the same steps statewide, and the deadline comes once a year.
Check your assessment first
Compare your assessment with what your property would actually sell for. In most towns the assessment is a percentage of market value, set by the town’s equalization rate, so convert it before you compare. Then look at recent sales of similar homes nearby. If your assessment implies a value well above what comparable homes sold for, you may have a case. Errors in the assessor’s record also count: wrong square footage, a finished basement you don’t have, a garage that isn’t there.
Start informally. Many assessors will correct a clear error or review the value if you call before the tentative roll is final.
Grievance Day
If the assessor won’t change it, you file a formal complaint with your Board of Assessment Review. In most towns, Grievance Day is the fourth Tuesday in May. Towns that share an assessor may set a date up to the second Tuesday in June. Cities and villages set their own dates, so check with your assessor or city clerk. In Kingston, ask the city assessor’s office for the current date.
How to file
- Use state Form RP-524, Complaint on Real Property Assessment, filed with the assessor or the Board of Assessment Review by Grievance Day.
- Attach your evidence: recent sales of comparable properties, an appraisal if you have one, photos and corrections to the property record.
- You can appear in person or send a representative authorized on the form. The board can ask you to appear or answer questions, and refusing means no reduction.
If the board says no
- Small Claims Assessment Review (SCAR) is available to owners of one-, two- or three-family homes used only as residences, and owners of vacant lots too small for a home. The filing fee is $30, and a hearing officer reviews the case.
- Tax certiorari is a court proceeding in State Supreme Court, used mainly for commercial and investment properties. Most owners hire an attorney.
- Both must be started within 30 days after the final assessment roll is filed, or after notice of its filing, whichever is later.
For investors and commercial owners
Assessors often value income properties on their income. If your building’s net operating income doesn’t support its assessment, that’s the basis for a challenge, and the income and expense statement is your best evidence. We underwrite taxes at the purchase price on every deal for the same reason: a sale often triggers a new assessment.
How we help
Gene Rios Realty can prepare a written comparable-sales analysis for a homeowner considering a grievance, or an income valuation for an investment property. Ask for an assessment check.
General information only, not legal or tax advice. Dates and procedures can vary by municipality; confirm with your assessor and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.