CHALLENGING YOUR TAX ASSESSMENT, P.2

Unlike rental buildings, which generally must file current income-and-expense statements, the tax commission allows co-ops and condos to file a two-year-old statement, since the city recognizes that co-ops' and condos' annual statements generally aren't made final until after the March 1 filing deadline.

As part of the income and expense statements, co-ops and condos are required to disclose rental information on units owned by the sponsor, the co-op or holders of unsold shares. This rental information is broken down between rent-regulated and unregulated units.

Property values come in three flavors: over-assessed, under-assessed or properly assessed. Often, at the time an application must be filed, it's difficult to know which applies because during the six-week filing period, there's no time to conduct an in-depth analysis. If you've filed a proper application has been filed with the tax commission, and an RPIE with the Department of Finance during the prior fall, then the tax commission has jurisdiction to review the current assessed value, as well as the prior year's assessment (provided that an application and a petition to review the prior year's assessment have been served upon the city).

April is the Cruelest Month....

Tax commission hearings begin in April. Since it's impossible to have every one of the 40,000 to 60,000 cases filed each year heard before the final roll is released in late May, the commission starts with cases that a total assessed value of $11 million or more, along with a smattering of other, smaller cases. Since these matters comprise a large share of the city's tax levy, this creates some stability for its budget-making process. Cases not heard in the spring will nevertheless obtain hearings throughout the summer and into the fall.

After you get a hearing date, a tax-commission representative analyzes the assessed value of your property by envisioning a fictitious rental building. For co-ops and condos where there are still unsold share units or shares held by a sponsor, the rents of those units will be part of the income equation used for some guidance as to the rental value of the building as a whole.

While RPIE data is confidential, income and expenses filed with the tax commission by owners of rental buildings are matters of public record and that data can be obtained through a Freedom of Information Request to the Department of Finance.

Eric Weiss is a partner at Tuchman, Korngold, Weiss, Lippman & Gelles

PART 2 >>

Adapted from Habitat January 2009. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>