Bill Text: NJ A1122 | 2018-2019 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Permits exterior-based property reassessments within eight years of last municipal-wide revaluation.
Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2018-01-09 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly State and Local Government Committee [A1122 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2018-A1122-Introduced.html
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
218th LEGISLATURE
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2018 SESSION
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman BENJIE E. WIMBERLY
District 35 (Bergen and Passaic)
Co-Sponsored by:
Assemblymen McGuckin and Wolfe
SYNOPSIS
Permits exterior-based property reassessments within eight years of last municipal-wide revaluation.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.
An Act concerning the assessment of real property and amending P.L.1971, c.424.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. Section 1 of P.L.1971, c.424 (C.54:1-35.35) is amended to read as follows:
1. The Director of the Division of Taxation in the Department of the Treasury shall by rule establish standards to be used in the valuation and revaluation of real property to be used for assessment purposes and shall prescribe minimum qualifications for firms and individuals engaged in the business of valuing and revaluing all or designated portions of real property in a municipality under contract.
The director shall not deny an application for an exterior-based district-wide reassessment, omitting interior inspections, within an eight-year period from the implementation year of the last district-wide revaluation or district-wide program of interior inspections.
(cf: P.L.1971, c.424, s.1)
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill would double the period of time, from four to eight years, that an in-house exterior-based reassessment is allowed from the last municipal-wide interior inspection program, which is usually the last revaluation.
Generally, revaluations are performed by private companies, and involve interior, as well as exterior, inspections of properties, while less expensive reassessments are performed in-house by the municipal property tax assessor and based on exterior inspections only. Although statutory law does not specify a frequency for municipal-wide revaluations, N.J.A.C.18:12A-1.14(c)(3)(ii) requires interior inspections "within the four years immediately preceding [the] year of implementation of the proposed district-wide reassessment." This regulatory frequency for interior inspections, which generally requires a municipal-wide revaluation, is labor intensive and therefore very expensive to perform, representing a serious hardship for municipalities during difficult economic times. Under the bill, the Director of the Division of Taxation in the Department of the Treasury could not deny an application for a municipal-wide reassessment for lack of interior inspections if interior inspections were performed in the municipality within the previous eight years.
