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Issue #10 - Week of May 29, 2009
Estate Of Mind
The Airing of Grievances
by Rebeca Schiller 
May 19 was "Grievance Day" in Southampton - the one day out of the year when homeowners could challenge the town's figures on the current value of their properties. Nearly 9,900 Southampton Town residents got notices about anincrease in the assessed values of their homes.To understand the ins-and-outs of residential property assessment, visit theNew York State Office of Real Property Services website. It explains in greatdetail how the town assessor keeps assessments up-to-date and equitable eachyear, ensuring that tax payers don't pay more or less than their fair share.In a nutshell, residential property assessments are estimates of the marketvalue of real property in a given community. In other words, the market value ishow much the property would sell for under normal conditions (normal being theoperative word in this economy). The assessor determines market value bycomparing similar properties in similar neighborhoods ("comps") and estimateshow factors like home additions or new construction might affect the marketvalue.New York State law requires all properties (except those in New York City andNassau County) to be assessed at a uniform percentage value within thecommunity every year. Each assessment is a percentage of market value -called the Level of Assessment (LOA). An LOA of 50% means that assessmentsare at half the market value; an LOA of 100% means that a town (such asSouthampton or Shelter Island) is assessing at full market value. Therefore, if the market value of a home is $100,000 and the town is assessing at 100% of market value, the property's assessment should be $100,000.Each year, to maintain a uniform LOA, the assessor will analyze all theproperties in the area to determine which assessments need to be changed.Assuming that the assessments have been kept up-to-date and market
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