Assessment appeal method targeted for repeal by city

Real Estate Weekly, May 6, 1998 by Lois Weiss

"We could ask for a better effort on the part of the Law Department to resolve cases in a timely manner," he suggested. Block also offered a compromise that any audit requirement be deemed to be satisfied as a matter of law after 18 months, for instance.

"They wouldn't like that, but they are the ones without an audit staff, and are the ones that have used audit staff as a dilatory tactic. But someone has to speak in a comprehensive way as to what's fair for the taxpayers and the city.

Another suggestion is to begin interest running on settlements where a case is pending more than X years, although the tradition between the bar and the city has been to agree to let that interest slide, except where a case is adjudicated by the courts.

The Business Council met with city officials earlier this year and strongly rejected the appeal that the sales study method just be lifted for New York City.

"Without that you have no practical remedy with which to fight an unequal assessment, and I think the city knows that," said Schwartz, adding "We represent businesses throughout New York State, and that includes New York City."

William Banfield, president of the Real Estate Tax Review Bar Association and a partner with Podell Schwartz Schechter & Banfield, said "The restoration of sales is important to taxpayers in general and to the commercial taxpayer in particular because in a rising market, where the assessments have not tracked the sales prices, it would suggest the real ratio is less than the city proposes. If sales are eliminated, the only two ways of proving ratio are the selected parcels and the state board. The state board has been sued by the city but cannot be sued by individual taxpayers, and they have indicated they are looking at using sales themselves. The use of sales by taxpayers is not bizarre."

Banfield also noted that if a property owner has paid a high sale price and the assessment does not rise, "the owner may believe he is being fairly assessed and it may not be true, because the real ratio is less."