Legislature Changes Revaluation Schedule

By Jan Howard

The state legislature has passed legislation that replaces the current statutory revaluation schedule, in which municipalities must revalue property every four years, with a requirement that they revalue five years after their last revaluation. In Newtown, that would mean a revaluation would be required in 2007.

“That’s what we were looking for,” First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said this week. He said municipalities wanted the revaluation requirement to be every six years, but that proposal “may come back,” he said.

The law states that by law, municipalities must conduct certain revaluations by physical inspections and can conduct others by statistical means. Beginning October 1, 2009, the law requires physical revaluations every ten years, rather than every 12.

The law requires that a municipality that conducted its last revaluation by statistical means to conduct its next revaluation by physical inspection, but it requires physical revaluations no more than once every ten years. It allows municipalities that conducted their last revaluations by physical inspections to conduct a statistical revaluation the next time.

For municipalities that, under current law, must revalue real property in the 2003, 2004, or 2005 assessment years, the law allows a delay in revaluation to the 2006 assessment year. The delay requires the approval of the municipality’s legislative body, and subsequent revaluations must be made every five years thereafter.

During the Board of Selectmen meeting Monday, Mr Rosenthal noted that some legislators have expressed surprise about the cost of revaluations. Newtown is budgeting $450,000 over three budget years to finance the next revaluation. The last revaluation in 2002 cost the town $350,000.

Mr Rosenthal said the town had to go over all the sales and do a physical inspection to develop a matrix of values for all the properties. “You have to have a basis to go from,” he said.

What has made revaluations so expensive is that there are few companies that provide the service.

Under the current law, which was enacted in 1995, municipalities are required to revalue properties every four years between physical revaluations, which are required every 12 years. Previously, state law required physical revaluations every ten years, and an interim revaluation within five years of the last physical revaluation.