~What does the Assessing Department do?
A primary responsibility of the assessing department is the continuous discovery and listing of new and additional construction. Building permit information is received on a regular basis from the Building Department and data collectors are sent out to list and measure all new construction, additions and remodeling that occurs during the year. After being entered into the mass appraisal system, these structures and additions become new sources of tax revenue for the town, since they did not previously exist, and are reported to the Department of Revenue every year as new growth. This new growth generally increases the value of the tax base in Holbrook.
The core responsibility of the assessing division is the yearly revaluation of property. Assessors are required by Massachusetts law to value all real and personal property within the town. The legal standard is that all real property, from the smallest vacant piece of land to the largest commercial property, is assessed at its “full and fair market value”, or what it should sell for as of the valuation date of January 1 every year. Personal property is assessed at a standardized purchase price less reasonable depreciation. This is done to ensure that all taxpayers pay their fair share of the cost of local government.
Every year, for 30 days after the actual tax bill is issued, taxpayers have the right to contest their assessed values by filing an abatement request with the Board of Assessors. The assessing staff must review these applications to determine whether the request has merit and then recommend to the Board of Assessors whether to deny the application or reduce the taxable value to a level established by some data error on the property or by market sales evidence. The assessor’s tax values are presumed to be correct until proven otherwise by the owner or his agent. If the taxpayer is unhappy with the Board of Assessor’s decision, they may file with the Appellate Tax Board in Boston for further review. Assessors must prepare, present and defend the Board of Assessor’s
decisions before the Appellate Tax Board in these cases.
Assessors also have the responsibility of issuing motor vehicle excise tax bills, with the information supplied by the State Registry of Motor Vehicles, and boat excise tax bills, which are generated at the local level from a list supplied by the Department of Environmental Police. Assessors also administer water, street and sewer betterments voted for by the Selectmen. Also, assessors must review and process personal exemptions which are a type of tax credit for qualified taxpayers, and qualify the applications of charitable organizations and agricultural/forest/recreational properties.
Assessors have a major role in promoting effective financial management in the town. Real estate and motor vehicle excise tax levies account for a majority of the funds available to the municipality to provide necessary local services. Efficient and effective assessment practices result in reliable tax levies for the town and equitable distribution of the tax burden among its property owners.
How do Assessors determine value?
Assessors are required by Massachusetts law to value all real and personal property at its “full and fair market value”, the amount a knowledgeable, willing buyer would pay a knowledgeable, willing seller on an open market. Assessors first inspect each property to record specific features of the land and buildings that contribute to the property’s overall value. Living area, construction style, the year built, quality of construction, number of rooms, baths, fireplaces, type of heating – all are examples of the data listed on individual property record cards. By state regulation, each structure in town must be inspected at least once every nine years to verify the data on the record cards.
Finding the “full and fair market value” of a property involves discovering what similar properties are selling for on the open market. Assessors make an effort to physically inspect all properties that sell to ensure that the data used to assess the properties is correct. The assessed values are compared to the validated sale prices of the properties and then, if required, adjustments are made to the valuation tables in the mass appraisal system. A mass appraisal system is basically a computer model of the marketplace for all types of properties and buildings. This process continues until the resulting assessed values approximate the sale prices. A statistical analysis is then conducted on the ratio of the new assessed values to the sales prices to ensure that the new values meet acceptable
ratio levels for all property types and sizes, as directed by the Department of Revenue’s (DOR) Local Services Division. Valuation techniques for commercial and industrial properties also include analysis from an investor’s point of view, since the purchase price a buyer is willing to pay depends to a large extent on the return (profit) they expect to receive from purchasing and then leasing out the property. The use of yearly income and expense mailing requests assists the assessors ingathering the data needed to determine average local costs and profits for all types of properties in town. When the statistical analysis confirms that the revised values represent the fair market value of the properties that sold, the new value tables are applied to all the properties in the town in the mass appraisal system. The revised values should then fairly and equitably reflect the market value for all the properties in the town.
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