Reassessment

On BeaverHills.org http://beaverhills.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47 a neighbor posted a question about his reassessment. I posted the following reply.

The time has passed for the appeal but I do have some ideas on how to approach the entire reevaluation.

You can start by going to http://data.visionappraisal.com/NewHavenCT/DEFAULT.asp . Set up a user account for free. Login and find your house by typing in the street number and street name. See what Vision Appraisal has for the hard facts about you house:

· Is the listing for you house for square footage accurate?
· Are there more features listed then in reality?
· Are all the other listed facts & figures accurate?

If you can find a material error showing that they over assessed the property they will fix it.

Then go and look at some of your neighbors’ properties. Are they assessed higher or lower. Make sure that you are comparing apples to apples. If you house is 4,000 sq feet & your neighbor’s house is 2,000 sq feet you will most probably have a higher assessment. If most things are equal and you are substantially assessed higher then the rest of your block you may have a leg to stand on. Note that brick and stucco houses are usually assessed higher then wood clapboard houses.

If all the houses on the block look out of whack there may have been a single house that sold for a greater sum due to having special features (double lot, central air, etc.) You can see what the houses around you sold for by going to this web site, http://www.zillow.com/.

None of this is guaranteed to work but it may help. Please remember that the assessed value is 70% of the actual value. So if you house is valued at $100,000 the assessed value is $70,000 (that is what is listed on the Vision Appraisal site), if you can sell your house for at least 70% of what the assessed value is you will have a hard time getting a reduction.

Good Luck!

Yours in Service,

Moti Sandman
Alderman – Ward 28