Real estate Objections to province's property value assessments have jumped by 57 per cent

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JOHN SHMUEL
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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The number of New Brunswickers filing appeals of their property tax assessments jumped by more than 3,000 this year and some homeowners say the reason is an inconsistent assessment system that needs to be more transparent.

There were 8,542 appeals filed as of June 26 for residences and businesses in the province, compared to 5,457 in 2008. Of those, 7,349 were residential filings, while 1,193 were non-residential.

"The high this year was not unexpected, given that New Brunswick real estate really kept its value at a time when the rest of North America was seeing falling real estate values - and it's the worst recession in 75 years," Brent Roy, spokesman for Service New Brunswick, said in an interview on Monday.

Appeals are broken down by 11 regions throughout the province.

Of those, the Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton areas saw the highest numbers of appeals. Despite the spike, however, Service New Brunswick didn't hire additional personnel to deal with the influx of paperwork, opting instead to shuffle staff to different offices, Roy said.

Jason Stephen, vice-president of the board of directors for the Saint John Real Estate Board, said the increase in appeals is due to a continuing lack of transparency in the assessment process.

"My experience is that peoples' homes are sometimes assessed (at) more than what they should be," he said. "On the flip side, sometimes they're not assessed at what the market value is. It's inconsistent and I think that's the issue at hand right now for governments. There needs to be more consistency."

Stephen said homes in the same area often are assessed at the same price when, in reality, one home may be owned by a senior who has never renovated, while a new bathroom may have just been installed in the other home.

Roy, however, attributes at least part of the spike to New Brunswickers' expecting lower assessments due to the global economy, which has taken a toll on housing prices in some markets, especially in the United States.

He points out that hasn't been the case in New Brunswick, where real estate prices are the highest they've ever been. According to the New Brunswick Real Estate Association, the average home price rose nine per cent to $166,672 from May 2008 to May 2009.

"Two years ago we were at a generational low in terms of (assessment) appeals. Obviously, when things are going well like they are now and your tax bill is higher, people tend to scrutinize it more," Roy said.

Stephen, who's also the government relations chairman for the real estate association, said the group is lobbying for an assessment cap to allow people to properly budget money for property taxes.

"That would allow people from the onset to know that their properties aren't going to go up more than three or five per cent every year, so they can budget that. The problem is now that you have a situation where you can go up 18 or 20 per cent," he said.

Stephen filed an appeal this year over his property tax assessment and he plans to continue pushing for a better system.

"When your tax bill goes up by 20 per cent, you're talking $500 or $600 a year, and that's a lot of money. So when you're trying to budget your house, it's pretty darn hard if there's no consistency on the tax rate and it just goes up arbitrarily every year."