New Jersey Property Tax Appeals

In light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, New Jersey temporarily extended the deadline to file New Jersey property tax appeals and set the deadline as 30 days following the lifting of New Jersey Governor’s Executive Order 103. In linking the extension to the state of emergency declaration and the declaration being lifted, it created an arbitrary and unknown deadline. This was vague and unclear causing confusion to all including towns, property owners, the New Jersey Tax Court and even County Boards of Taxation because nobody knows when the state of emergency will be lifted. Now, with the passage and signing of bill A4157, which sets July 1, 2020 as the deadline to file a property tax appeal, every property owner has adequate time to determine whether to file an appeal.

Florio Perrucci partners, Lester Taylor and Craig Bossong, were featured in a recent New Jersey Law Journal Article, Tax Appeal Extension a ‘Step in the Right Direction’ for Cash-Starved Municipalities.

Key points of the article include:

• There is now clear direction with the July 1st deadline when to file a property tax appeal. At the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the deadline was extended but the date was left open-ended and unclear. Craig was quoted in the article, “It is a good thing. It at least creates a final drop-dead date by which appeals have to be filed.”
• County boards of taxation now have until September 30, 2020 to decide on property tax appeal cases.
• This is good news for both municipalities and property owners. Lester is quoted as saying, “This will help property owners and municipalities in helping to set a valuation rate, and if property owners still feel their properties are overvalued due to various circumstances, they can appeal next year and subsequent years.”
• Economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, will have a rippling effect on real estate leading to changes in property valuation leading to property tax appeals. Lester says, ““Real estate is getting hit, and that will trigger maybe less real estate valuations for offices to do business, which in itself creates tax appeals from commercial tenants.” He further cites the city of Paramus as a specific example, “If those businesses get hit, the city will have to make up for the revenue shortfall somewhere, and that will affect homeowners, who in turn will file appeals, and so on down the line.”

Please call us if you have any questions about this blog or would like the discuss your particular situation.