The Assessment Department is responsible for data collection and appraisal of commercial, industrial agricultural, residential and vacant properties within the Town of New Haven. The Town Assessor administers all exemptions, reviews and analyzes sales data, manages the equalization rate, defends the Town in assessment related court cases, and disseminates large volumes of assessment and tax related data to the general public.
The Assessor is available by appointment throughout the year to discuss assessment related topics. The Assessor recognizes that the issue of property taxes and its congruence with assessments is a complicated and emotional issue. The Assessors’ office would like property owners to be aware that WE DO NOT set budgets or levy taxes. The tax rates seen on your tax bills are the result of the expenditures and levy requests of the taxing jurisdictions in which you reside.
The Assessor will accept informal requests to your assessment at any time during the year upon the filing of an “Assessment Review Consent Form” available at our offices. These forms are usually reviewed as the last part of the process in the finishing the tentative assessment roll, which is filed on May 1 of every year. The forms must be submitted by April 1st to provide time for review. Any request for an Assessment Review must include supporting data with each form. From this point on, the Assessor will only consider an assessment reduction upon full interior and exterior inspection of your property. Keep in mind that for assessment purposes (mass appraisal purposes) all buildings are measured from the OUTSIDE, where a fee appraiser will generally measure the inside. The reason is simple. Quite frankly, no one wants the Assessor in their house, while a fee appraiser is doing his job at your request for some type of possible financial gain (refinance, for example). Since all data collected has to adhere to the same process and principles, Assessors measure the outside for all properties.
The Town of New Haven appraises property at a full value. This is a Town Board decision. The equalization rate (Level of Assessment-LOA) for 2022 is 100.00%. The Equalization rate may change every year based on yearly differences in sales versus the assessments on those sales properties. The actual rate is set by the New York State Office of Real Property Tax Services. The assessment roll for 2022-2023 is based on sales data compiled between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.
All renewal applications are mailed in late October every year for return by March 1st. Due to the large volume of exemption forms mailed to property owners that require return, review and in many cases necessitate follow-up phone calls, we firmly adhere to the State legislated March 1st exemption deadline for all exemption applications. As a public service, we attempt to call and remind as many people as we can that the exemptions are due, but staffing and time constraints limit our opportunity to reach everyone. Key dates that affect the assessment process are:
March 1st - Taxable Status Date
March 1st Exemption Filing Deadline
The Assessor is required by New York State law to value property as it is on this date. A partially completed building will receive a partial assessment based on its estimated percentage of completion as of March 1st. If you suffer a loss to your property (such as fire or demolition) after this date you will see no reduction for that loss on forthcoming roll. STAR, Enhanced STAR and exemption forms must be filed by this date also
May 1st - Tentative Roll Filed
4th Tuesday in May Grievance Day
July 1st Final Roll Filed
The Tentative Assessment Roll is filed on May 1st and may be inspected during regular office hours. The roll is available on line at: Grievance Day is usually the 4th Tuesday in May from 4:00 pm until 8:00 pm at the Town of New Haven Town Hall. The Assessor will annually post available times that the Assessor is in attendance with the roll beyond regular business hours.
If you have decided to file for an assessment reduction, you should mail or deliver the complaint form and supporting documentation to your local assessing unit so that it arrives on or before Grievance Day. If you mail the NYS RP-524 form, even if it is postmarked on or before Grievance Day, it is deemed to be late if it does NOT arrive by Grievance Day. Ideally, the form should arrive at least 3 business days before Grievance Day. The assessor can obtain an adjournment to have time to prepare a response to your complaint. The reason behind this is that due to the volume of complaints, the forms cannot be reviewed by the Assessor by Grievance Day in preparation for submission to the Board of Assessment Review. It should be noted that a personal appearance before the Board of Assessment Review IS NOT A REQUIREMENT. All paperwork will be reviewed by the Board of Assessment Review regardless of your choice not to appear.
Commercial Grievances
If you are filing a grievance on a commercial property, please fill out the attached forms and return a printed copy to our office:
PHONE: (315) 963 - 3900
FAX: (315) 963 - 7231
Copyright © 2016 - 2024 Town of New Haven
P.O. BOX 141, 4279 STATE ROUTE 104, NEW HAVEN, NY 13121
TOWN OFFICE BUILDING OPEN M, T, W, Th: 8 AM - 4:00 PM
AND FRIDAY 8 AM - NOON
Site Designed by iHeart Corp of Oswego
