Paying too much in property taxes?

Should a homeowner or commercial property owner think the amount of property taxes they are paying is too high and does not reflect the property’s value, they can file an appeal with the Nassau County Assessment Review Commission, and the deadline to do that is March 1.

Property owners can file the grievance themselves or hire a firm that regularly handles tax reduction cases. The companies evaluate the claim, file the grievance and represent the client before the Assessment Review Commission.
If the property owner is not satisfied with the commission’s administrative review, the next step is a Small Claims Assessment Review proceeding in court.

“There is an informal hearing where we present evidence and the county representatives do the same,” said Mark Miller, a property tax attorney with more than 20 years of experience for Cedarhurst-based Maidenbaum & Sternberg, LLP and who also works as in-house counsel for the Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction Group.

Small Claims Assessment Review hearings are less common now than in the past, especially for homeowners due to the county’s effective use of the process, according to Ilyse Sternberg, a partner in Maidenbaum & Sternberg, LLP, with 25 years of experience. “Typically you would file and it took years as it winds its way through court, now ARC is more willing to settle cases,” she said.

That change came about a few years ago, when the county began to resolve most appeals through administrative reviews of assessments. “Nassau County is settling tax grievances prior to demanding payment from our homeowners,” county spokesman Brian Nevin said. “These steps are transforming the broken property tax assessment system that left Nassau County in a fiscal mess, and saving taxpayers $28 million a year.”

Sternberg said that homeowners should have an assessment review done annually to help ensure that they are paying the proper amount of tax as “people around them are filing.”