Help. My property tax assessment is way out of wack. I renovated an SRO, so the original rate was higher. Now that the tax department knows I have a 2 family, my taxes should have gone down. Instead, they went up, and more than 6%. Does anyone have any experience protesting their assessment or the name of a lawyer they have used for a single family home? Thanks.


Comments

  1. I’ve used Goldberg and Werpin for our co-op and they did very good by us. They don’t charge unless they will and the verdict they get, they charge around 20% of what the were able to reduce for you. Basically you have nothing to lose by going with them.

  2. Your rate may have gone down, but they may have reassessed the value of your home to reflect the improvements made in it. For most 1-3 family homes it isn’t just the lower rate that results in lower taxes, but the fact that the city cannot adjust the base taxable value more than 5% (?) a year. So even though the city estimates my market value of my house went down last year, my taxes continued to rise because the assessed value still hasn’t caught up with the market value. (Look at your document from the city – it has the correct terms and definitions.) Which is not to say you shouldn’t challenge it if you feel that you are being screwed.