Responsibilities of the Assessor
The assessor is a local government official who estimates the value of real property within a city, town, or village's boundaries. This value is converted into an assessment, which is one component in the computation of real property tax bills.
The assessor is obligated by New York State law to maintain assessments at a uniform percentage of market value each year.
The assessor's responsibility is to value real property using threee possible methods (Cost, Market, and Income) and, in return, establishing and maintaining a fair and equitable assessment roll.
The assessor performs many other administrative functions, such as determine property use and ownership, inspecting new construction and major improvements along with demolitions to existing tructures. The assessor also collects and maintains accurate inventory on each property record card including maintaining sales files. This ensures that the record of each property's physical inventory is current and that the appropriate improvements are assessed.
The assessor also administers various tax exemptions authorized under state and local law. These include enhanced and basic star, veterans, and senior citizens, and disability, agricultural, and partial or full exemptions for certain parcels owned by non-profit organizations that qualify by reason of religious, charitable, or educational use.
The assessment roll shows assessments and appropriate exemptions. Every year the roll, with preliminary or tentative assessments, is made available for public inspection. After the Board of Assessment Review (BAR) has acted on assessment complaints and ordered any changes, the tentative assessment roll is made final.
Review of the Assessment
Your assessment should reflect the market value of your property as of July 1 of the prior year. If you are requesting a review of your assessment with the assessment staff, you must provide documentation to support what you believe the assessed value of your property should be.
Supporting documentation should include home sales as of July 1st of the prior year which are similar size, age, condition and neighborhood to see if your assessment is appropriate.
You may also contact the assessor to review your property. Alternatively, you may file a Grievance Complaint on or before grievance day and the Board of Assessment review will make a determination based on information provided to them.