It is property tax appeal season again in Rhode Island. If you or your business own property (or lease property and are responsible for the taxes thereon) the following may be of interest to you.
THE NOTICE OF INTENTION AND ACCOUNT
In order to fully perfect your right to challenge your tax assessment in the Rhode Island Superior Court you must start the process by filing a notice of intention to file an Account as of January 31, 2009 with the local tax assessor’s office. This can be a simple and short letter indicating that you intend to file an Account. It need not state anything more. The Account itself must be filed with the local tax assessor not earlier than March 1st nor later than March 15th of 2009. The Account is “an oath before a notary public that contains, to the best of the taxpayer’s knowledge and belief, a true and full account and valuation of all the ratable estate (i.e. taxable real and personal property) owned or possessed” by him, her or it. Having either an appraisal or some other evidence of value is a good idea at this point, but is not required. Since the Account is due in the beginning of March and the tax rate (called the mill rate) is not set until May, you will not know the amount of your total tax bill at the time of filing your Account. However, it doesn’t really matter since the Account merely addresses the issues of valuation of your taxable estate and not the amount of your assessment.
Failure to file this Account may prevent you from filing an appeal with the Superior Court, if such a defense is raised by the city or town. Van Alen v. Stein, 119 R.I. at 362, 376 A.2d at 1391 (1977)(taxpayers’ failure to have the account notarized resulted in an inadequate account and, therefore, the taxpayers were “not entitled to judicial review of their claim of overassessment”). While this practice is sometimes overlooked in the tax appeal process, it is not a difficult filing process and we can help you in preparing and filing your Account.
Keep in mind that even if you forget to file a Notice of Intention and/or the Account, you are not prevented from filing an appeal before the municipal tax assessor and/or local tax review board. Moreover, if your town is going through a revaluation, or update of a revaluation, the failure to file an Account will not preclude a taxpayer from asserting a challenge in Superior Court of a tax assessment if your “real estate has been assessed at a value in excess of the value at which it was assessed on the last preceding assessment day.” Providence and Westerly will be undergoing full reevaluations this year and Warwick, Warren, East Providence, Burrillville, North Smithfield, Smithfield, Central Falls, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Lincoln, West Warwick, Johnston and Jamestown are doing updates.
THE APPEAL
Any appeal of your tax bill and/or assessment must start with a municipal appeal. There are a number of grounds upon which you may appeal your property taxes, as follows:
OVERASSESSMENT
In general, by statute your tax assessment should not exceed 105.5% of the preceding year’s tax assessment. You should also check the accuracy of the description of the property being assessed.
DISPROPORTIONATE ASSESSMENT
As compared to other comparable properties, your valuation is significantly higher.
MISCLASSIFICATION OF ASSESSMENT
The Property Classification of your property is wrong. Each property classification has a different mill rate.
ILLEGAL OR VOID TAX ASSESSMENT
The process by which your assessment was established was illegal or the assessment should be void.
To file an appeal you must, within ninety (90) days from the date the first tax payment is due, file an Application for Appeal in the local office of tax assessment (We can provide you with the statutory form of application and assist you with its preparation). The date that the first tax payment is due varies from municipality to municipality but usually is in September of the year following the assessment. You should keep this deadline in mind when you receive your tax bill. At this point an appraisal or other evidence of value of your ratable estate will be required to counter the local tax assessor’s assessment data.
Once the Application for Appeal has been filed, the city or town tax assessor has fortyfive (45) days to review the appeal, render a decision and notify you of the decision. If you are still unsatisfied, you may file an appeal within thirty (30) days from the date of the written decision of the local tax assessor. If the assessor does not render a decision within forty-five (45) days of filing the Application for Appeal then you have ninety (90) days after the expiration of the forty-five day period to file an appeal with the local tax review board. You use the same statutory application form as discussed above for this second appeal.
The local tax review board will hear your appeal on an advertised hearing date within ninety (90) days of filing of the second Application for Appeal and shall render a decision within thirty (30) days of the hearing. At this hearing, you are allowed to put on a full presentation of evidence to challenge the assessment. This means that you are allowed to bring in your own appraisal expert to challenge the tax assessment.
If you are still unsatisfied with your tax bill and/or assessment and assuming that you filed an Account, you may within thirty (30) days of the tax review board’s decision, file a petition in the Superior Court for the county in which your city or town lies for relief from the assessment. We would strongly recommend that if you have not already retained counsel that you do so at this point to assist you in filing a Petition with the Superior Court.
If you or your business own real estate in other New England states we can assist you with Tax appeals in those states as well.