Toward a Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights

By Nora Post, PhD

The goddesses must have an exquisite sense of irony. The tax assessor’s office in Kingston, N.Y., just happens to be adjacent to the emergency room entrance of our local hospital. The biggest difference between these two institutions is that when I am a patient at the emergency room at Kingston Hospital, I can see a Patient’s Bill of Rights plastered up on the wall. No such luck with the tax assessor’s office. Perhaps Dante’s Abandon Hope All Ye That Enter Here should be framed over the assessor’s door. Allow me to explain.

This spring, the City of Kingston properties were reassessed. My house, which I bought for $146,900 in 2002, was reassessed at $333,000. My property taxes went up 40 percent in one day. It doesn’t matter that according to the Ulster County Board of Realtors, all the percentage increases in Kingston property values since the date of my purchase would leave the house at a value of $253,000. It doesn’t matter that my insurer, Allstate, has valued my home at $236,000. It doesn’t matter that according to the city’s own “uniform percentage level of assessment” formula (that’s a real mouthful), the house should be taxed at $216,000. It doesn’t matter that the house next to mine — assessed at $328,000 — just sold for $204,000. It doesn’t matter that the most reputable appraiser in the Hudson Valley appraised my house at $63,000 less than the tax assessment, and it doesn’t matter that the houses the tax assessor used to determine my assessment were, on average, assessed about $50,000 less than my house, even though my house has about 233 square feet less area on average than those houses. But wait, those houses have on average 138 percent more land than my postage stamp piece of property. So, what gives? How can this possibly be?

After three rounds of grievance appearances, I think I get it. What I get is that we need a Property Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The tax assessor uses an opaque formula known only by her to determine assessments. She does not have to inform the taxpayer how the amount of an assessment is determined. If I had committed a felony, for example, everyone would have access to the same laws and information. But with the tax assessor, it’s not a level playing field because the taxpayer doesn’t have the information used by the assessor to determine their assessment. For example, when your grievance is turned down, it is on the basis of information provided by the assessor. Fine. But we do not have access to the information provided by the assessor! Yet when I appealed my taxes for the third time, I had to file six copies of all my paperwork and research, and I also provided a formal appraisal. Why doesn’t the tax assessor have to provide her research? The Office of Real Property Services tells us that to prepare for our hearings, we must assume that we are guilty until proven innocent. Why isn’t it the other way around? The notice I received for my hearing stated that I was the plaintiff and the tax assessor was the defendant. Either this was simply an error, or the tax assessor should actually defend herself and provide the information my appraiser and I requested concerning the basis for her assessment. Why isn’t she held accountable? Why shouldn’t she prove that she is correct, instead of leaving the taxpayer to second-guess what she might have been thinking? In order to even consider a concept like fairness — which is the stated aim of these hearings — the taxpayer needs to have the same information the assessor has. We all need to play by the same set of rules, and fairness should be the goal. Right now, the rules are stacked against the taxpayer, yet, according to our constitutional rights, we are assumed innocent until proven guilty. What happened?

Having been one of a small group of people in my city who went through the six-month ordeal of three levels of grievances, perhaps a few observations are in order. First, I would suggest that this entire process could occur in a lot less than six months. Six months is way too long to go to sleep every night worrying that you are going to lose your home. Second, the forms we have to fill out should be straightforward, clear, and in terms that the layman can understand. When a form starts out by asking for the case and docket number of an appearance that hasn’t been scheduled yet, something is very wrong. When I arrived to submit three copies of the paperwork for the third appeal to the Ulster County Clerk’s office, I asked about this. The woman who was there looked me straight in the face and told me that she would provide me with no information at all, that her job was to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to grieve his or her taxes. I was stunned, but didn’t say anything, assuming this was what she was told to say to people. Yet all I could think was that it’s taxpayers like me who fund her paycheck. If she isn’t responsible to the taxpayers who have hired her, who is she responsible to?

Most people are intimidated by filling out all the paperwork for a grievance, doing the research, and defending themselves. Instead, they just give up, roll over, and write the check. Many people are afraid to ask questions because they don’t want to appear stupid; they are simply too intimidated to go up against the system. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that the assessor is counting on this!

In Kingston, we were entitled to a whopping five-minute appearance at the second level of grievance. It’s simply not possible to summarize the appeal and have an intelligent discussion within five minutes. But I guess it doesn’t really even matter, because what happened was that 1,200 homeowners grieved their taxes (we made National Public Radio), but the assessor didn’t want to see that many people. So, once the available five-minute slots were filled up, no one else could get a hearing! No kidding. I got my appeal in early and got my five minutes.
At the third and final tax appeal, there is a hearing officer who makes the final determination after the taxpayer and the tax assessor do battle. I would hope the hearing officer is independent of City Hall, but he is paid to perform this service, and there was no information provided to the taxpayers about the credentials of the different hearing officers. As residents of New York State, we deserve some basic information about the qualifications of the hearing officers, and what it is that makes the State of New York believe they might possibly be the qualified, impartial, independent folks who could offer the taxpayer what they are hoping for: fairness. One other observation on this third level of appeal has to do with my own case: my hearing officer wrote that his judgment was based upon the information provided in both the assessor’s and my appraisals. I couldn’t believe my eyes, because the tax assessor had no appraisal.

I believe the tax assessor should be elected, not appointed. She should not serve at the pleasure of City Hall, with all the financial and political pressures this places on someone. Rather than being in bed with the local politicians, she should be shielded from City Hall.
So, what’s an honest taxpayer to do? I used to live in New Paltz, N.Y., and sold my house there when the taxes doubled within a few short years. I moved to Kingston, to a modest home (I think a 2002 purchase priced at $146,900 would be considered modest to most people) on an absolutely tiny parcel with a backyard that is 12 feet deep (someone would have to get a variance to build on something this small nowadays). I assumed I would be able to handle the property taxes. But in six years, my property taxes have almost doubled again.
In cases like mine, where reassessments result in dramatic property tax increases, I think the increases should be phased in gradually, so that the homeowner has some wiggle room to figure out where the additional funds are going to come from. The City of Poughkeepsie was also reassessed this year, but they are phasing in the increased tax assessments at a rate of 5 percent per year until the amount of the new assessment is reached. No such luck in Kingston, where it’s all due immediately. There should be a statewide percentage cap on increases due to reassessments for existing homeowners.

On a personal note, I became disabled in 1980. Thankfully, I have been fortunate enough to be among the working disabled. I run my own business on a part-time basis so that I can work around my spinal cord disability (because of the nature of my disability, I would not be physically capable of holding a traditional job). After almost 30 years of disabling pain, after three spinal surgeries, after being paralyzed on my right side, the funny thing is that it’s not my disability that is driving me from my home — it’s the property taxes. My projected property taxes are now over half my income. But wait, the City of Kingston now plans to increase our taxes another 15 percent for the new city budget. All of this is since the spring of 2008.

My house is now on the market, but there simply is no market in this economy. I am willing to leave the house I love, but I am trapped in a market with virtually no buyers. Being as disabled as I am, living alone, being unable to lift more than about five pounds, the thought of moving is daunting. But I have no choice. That still, small voice inside me keeps asking: What will I do when my property taxes double yet again? I guess I would be the world’s biggest homeless fool by then …

In the end, property taxes are a judgment call. Let’s give everyone the same information, let’s make this as fair as possible for New Yorkers throughout the state, and let’s give the people who come after me a fair chance to stay in their homes.