Revaluation process will get under way in township
BY ELANA ARON
Correspondent

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP - An ordinance authorizing the revaluation of property in the municipality was adopted at the May 23 meeting of the Township Committee.

All parcels of residential and commercial property will be revalued by representatives of Realty Appraisal, a revaluation firm. The mandated revaluations are expected to be completed by Jan. 1, 2008.

The cost to the township of conducting the revaluation will be about $1 million, payable at $200,000 per year for five years and taken from a special emergency budget.

As part of the revaluation process, assessors from the firm will be visiting every residence and business in Freehold Township.

According to Township Administrator Thomas E. Antus, the value of residences will most likely show an increase since the last revaluation was completed a decade ago.

Antus said a rough estimate would be that a house that was assessed at $275,000 10 years ago may be reassessed at between $500,000 and $550,000 in the pending revaluation.

"Revaluation puts everyone on a level playing surface," Antus said. "Freehold Township is a desirable community. The housing is going up."

With the reassessment will come an adjustment of the tax rates that are used to determine how much a property owner pays in property taxes.

The new amount that a property owner will pay in taxes cannot be known until a property owner has the new assessement and officials have recalculated the tax rates.

The assessments are based on what properties sell for in a particular neighborhood. Businesses are assessed according to the amount of generated income.

External factors such as inflation, appreciation, depreciation and physical deterioration of property may cause values to increase or decrease.

In order to ensure the fairness of a property assessment, New Jersey legislation requires the tax board to compare the true market value of property to the assessment.

An assessment that exceeds true market value by 15 percent is automatically reduced to the general average.

Likewise, if the assessment falls below average range the tax board is required to increase the assessment. Assessments that fall within level range of the true market value are not adjusted.

If property owners wish to appeal their new assessments, a hearing before the Monmouth County Tax Board must be scheduled.

Before filing an appeal the property owner should consider what the market value of his property was the previous year, and whether property was assessed in excess of its market value if a revaluation was implemented during the current tax year.

For more information on revaluation visit www.tax.co.monmouth.nj.us.