Property tax appeals double
Published Wednesday July 1st, 2009
The number of residents in the Fredericton area who have appealed their property tax assessment has almost doubled this year to 1,450.
The numbers are so high that officials at Service New Brunswick say assessors have been brought in from other regions to help review the assessments.
But the backlog is so large that all the appeals won't be finished until the end of summer, said Service New Brunswick spokesman Brent Roy on Tuesday.
Property tax appeals are usually done by the end of June, he said.
"They are taking a little longer to process because there are more to do.''
In 2008, 749 residents in the Fredericton region filed a request for review (RFR), which is the first stage of appealing their property tax assessment.
That number rose by 701 this year to 1,450.
One hundred commercial property owners appealed their assessments in 2008, that increased to 143 this year.
Property assessments for homes in Fredericton rose on average by 5.1 per cent this year.
Assessments in the capital have been rising by more than the rate of inflation for years. The assessment is done by the provincial government, not the municipality.
The amount a resident pays in annual tax on their home in Fredericton is their assessment value times $1.4176 per $100 in value if they're on the city's water and sewer system or $1.0632 per $100 in assessed value, the outside rate, if they aren't on the system.
The actual tax rate hasn't increased for several years.
The Fredericton region includes York and Sunbury counties, which take in the communities of Fredericton, Oromocto, New Maryland, Nackawic, Minto, Harvey, McAdam and Fredericton Junction.
Provincewide the number of property assessment appeals jumped 57 per cent to 8,542 this year.
The success rate for property tax assessment appeals is 55 to 60 per cent, said Roy.
He said the province has about 100 assessors in 11 regions and about half a dozen have been moved around to handle appeal "hot spots," such as Fredericton, Saint John and Hampton.
"It is not unusual for assessors to be asked to work in offices other than their normal regional office for a short time to assist in dealing with larger numbers of RFRs or filling in for someone out sick," said Brent Staeben, another spokesman for Service New Brunswick.
"This doesn't happen all the time but has been a normal course of practice over the years, as RFRs are known to go through cycles," he said.
Staeben said two years ago New Brunswick was at a generational low for appeals and this year was a peak.
"The high this year was not unexpected given that New Brunswick real estate largely kept its value at a time when the rest of North America was seeing falling real estate values amidst the worst recession in 75 years," he said.
Staeben said recent media reports found that housing prices in Fredericton were up 4.6 per cent year over year.
"This is the reality, but if you asked most New Brunswickers, I bet it's not what they would expect," he said.
Coun. Mike O'Brien, chairman of the city's finance committee, said he isn't surprised by the big jump in assessment appeals.
"It tells me that there has to be a better provincial mechanism on this," he said. "It is a shame there was so much (assessment increase) in the last two or three years."
O'Brien said his property assessment jumped 18 per cent this year due to recent improvements to his home.
He said the city would like to see the province do something to help smooth out the shock of higher property assessments for low-income homeowners such as seniors.
O'Brien said property values have stayed strong in Fredericton, but he hopes the assessments in the capital have caught up to market values and there won't be big increases in the future.
Official Opposition Leader David Alward also said no one should be surprised by the increase.
"People have had it up to their jaw with the continued increases," he said.
"For three years we have been calling for a property tax cap."
It isn't a long-term solution but it will take the pressure off homeowners in the short term until all the stakeholders can get together to develop a long-term fix, said Alward.
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