Assessor's Office

Duties of the Assessor

It is the Assessor’s responsibility to establish fair and equitable values for all real estate, taxable personal property, and taxable motor vehicles located within the Town.

•Determine tax-ability and value of properties, using methods such as field inspection, structural measurement, calculation,sales analysis, market trend studies, and income and expense analysis.

•Inspect new construction and major improvements to existing structures in order to determine values.

•Explain assessed values to property owners and defend appealed assessments at public hearings.

•Inspect properties, considering factors such as market value, location, and building or replacement costs to determine appraisal value.

•Prepare and maintain current data on each parcel assessed, including maps of boundaries, inventories of land and structures, property characteristics, and any applicable exemptions.

•Identify the ownership of each piece of taxable property.

•Conduct regular reviews of property within jurisdictions in order to determine changes in property due to construction or demolition.

•Complete and maintain assessment rolls that show the assessed values and status of all property in a municipality.

•Issue notices of assessments and taxes.

•Review information about transfers of property to ensure its accuracy, checking basic information on buyers, sellers, and sales prices and making corrections as necessary.

•Maintain familiarity with aspects of local real estate markets.

•Analyze trends in sales prices, construction costs, and rents, in order to assess property values and/or determine the accuracy of assessments.

•Approve applications for property tax exemptions or deductions.

•Establish uniform and equitable systems for assessing all classes and kinds of property.

•Write and submit appraisal and tax reports for public record.

•Serve on assessment review boards.

•Hire staff members.

•Provide sales analyses to be used for equalization of school aid.

Assessments

The Assessment Year begins October 1st and continues to the following September 30th of each year. All assessment work must be completed for finalization of the Grand List on January 31st.