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Ed;
Thanks for the detailed
explanation! Matt Hayes mentioned that the rate "may" (can never tell what
gov will do or not do) be adjusted down to compensate. You are probably
right, that the value of your camp would be higher on the mainland thus raising
your taxes.
I know your idea of
succeeding to another town has been kicked around over the last few years but
I'm not sure how serious. I certainly would be interested in investigating
this. Not knowing much about taxation, changing towns, and law, I'd
imagine that it's not certain we could be successful. With 70 camps on the
island though, if the rate of the other towns was lower (which I'm sure it
is) each person's investment could pay for itself the next tax
year. Also, to do this is voting involved where you have to be a
resident? I'm not and I'm not sure of the ratio on the island. As
far as a lawyer, (and one who's feeling this personally) Tim Hurlbut is a
lawyer in St' Albans who's got a camp on the west side. I don't know
if this area is something his practice can handle, but if not, perhaps he knows
a firm which can.
Even with these
questions, I'm very supportive of finding an alternative. When I built my
camp I had notions of turning it over to my kids and taxes was never a concern.
It had been the case that to make the tax payment I just had to collect
the coinage under the sofa cushions, in my car ash tray and the change basket in
the bed room, and probably had some left over. NOW I feel like
taking going over to North Hero harbor and throwing all their tea into the
lake!
Regards
Mike
Mike -
My assessment more than doubled as well. That alone, however, does
not necessarily mean the taxes will double. When the entire town is
reassessed, if everyone's assessment went up the same amount, no one would see a
change in their property tax bill. The town will simply adjust the tax
rate so that they receive the same amount of tax revenues on a property list
that is much more valuable.
Towns are not supposed to make money on a reassessment. The state
requires them to value the properties at fair market value. Each year the
property sales are sampled and based on the difference between the listed value
and the current history of sales (in that town), the town is supposed to apply
that increase to their entire list of properties in town and adjust the tax rate
accordingly. I know that my assessed value has not changed in many
years. I do think, however, that I could sell my property for what the new
value is. Perhaps a bit more.
My concern is that the rest of North Hero did not increase in value as much
as the B.I. properties. We are planning on speaking to the board about a
problem in our assessment, but I don't really expect much of a change from
that.
It is really unfortunate that B.I. is attached to North Hero and not St
Albans. North Hero is a "gold town" (lots of property value, few kids to
educate) so the tax rate is much higher as we share heavily in the cost of
education with property-value poor towns. And, the non-resident
(vacation home) rate is higher than the regular rate (state-wide) so we get
whacked hard.
When you remind the board that we receive no town services (except for
being able to park for the weekend at the town hall - give me a break!) they say
that is reflected in the value of our property. I tend to agree with them
as I know my property would sell for more if it were on the mainland. I
personally think that it being on an island makes it more desireable, but many
people do not.
What to do? I really don't know. But I do know that we would be
better off being part of St Albans or Swanton or even White River
Junction. Anyone know a good lawyer willing to take this one on?
Ed Haase
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