In June of 2013 the City established a Task Force “for the purpose of examining and analyzing Hartford’s property tax system, and making recommendations for State legislation to rectify imbalances resulting from the system.” We follow the City’s property tax system closely, and the Task Force’s recently released final report makes this a good opportunity to quickly review Hartford’s current tax situation, analyze the recommendations of the Task Force and share our thoughts. Hartford’s property
Thursday’s Hartford Courant contained an article and photo gallery projecting possible tax bills for a number of different properties in the City of Hartford. Their story contained just enough information to figure out what their model of the revaluation’s results say about the mill rate and residential assessment ratio. The Courant is projecting that the three property classes will have assessment ratios of 70% for commercial, 50% for apartments (which now includes four-family buildings) and
Last Tuesday we wrote about the West Hartford revaluation, focusing on the informal hearings that allow individual property owners to challenge the market values that they received in the mail from the Town. Today we turn our attention to analyzing the big picture results of the revaluation. Amanda Falcone’s piece in the Thursday’s Hartford Courant quotes West Hartford Assessor Joseph Dakers Sr. as saying the new market values will “likely cause the town’s grand list
West Hartford’s 2011 revaluation is progressing smoothly, and reached the public phase when Market Value letters began arriving during the second half of November. Before going any further, it is very important to emphasize three key points: 1. Property taxes don’t change until July 2012. 2. Taxes would be calculated based on the “New Property Assessment” in the bottom right of the letter, not the market value. 3. The mill rate will change, so multiplying
On Thursday, December 1st, updated market values began arriving from the City of Hartford. We were eagerly awaiting our letter because, well, real estate things get us excited and the revaluation is important. Now it’s here and it’s time to go to work interpreting what it all means. Proposed Fair Market Value The first important point to make is that the numbers sent by the City have no immediate impact on our property taxes. They