GREENWICH — Any property owner who disagrees with the findings of the recently completed revaluation is now facing a deadline for filing an appeal of their property’s value.
Owners must file by Feb. 22 for their case to be heard by the Board of Assessment Appeals, according the Assessor’s Department.
The town mailed preliminary assessments to property owners in November, but the deadline for appeals was announced only this week. The town said that next week it will mail the final assessments, after holding preliminary hearings on the new values.
Town Assessor Lauren Elliott told the Board of Estimate and Taxation on Tuesday night that by Friday she would sign the new Grand List, which details the value of all of Greenwich’s personal, residential and commercial real estate properties.
The reval company hired by the town held hearings earlier this month to discuss the preliminary findings with residents, which could cut down on appeals, she said. According to Elliott, 764 hearings were held on residential properties and 116 were held on commercial properties.
Some changes were made, Elliott said, but the adjustments in value to the Grand List were still being calculated. The reval company can make those changes, but they are reviewed by the town.
With the preliminary hearings completed, the town will make those changes in the final assessment notices, which will be mailed next week to residents.
“A notice is being sent out to every single property owner, regardless of whether they went to an informal hearing or not,” Elliott said. “On this final assessment notice, it will give every property owner their next appeal steps if they wish to do so.”
Requests for appeals must be made in writing, and a full set of instructions is included with the notices.
Elliott told Greenwich Time on Wednesday that she was not ready to release the figures in the new 2021 Grand List.
Last fall, the BET granted Elliott an extension that would have allowed her to sign the Grand List at the end of February, which would have pushed the appeal deadline to March. However, the work was completed as originally scheduled and the extra time will not be needed.
BET Chair Dan Ozizmir thanked Elliott and her department for their work on the revaluation. BET Budget Committee Chair Leslie Tarkington commended Elliott and her staff for not using the extension.
The revaluation, which is completed every five years by state mandate, had been planned for 2020. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced a delay for a year. The work, however, was completed in 2021.
The next revaluation is still scheduled for 2025.
The net value of Greenwich’s real estate for the 2020 Grand List — which included 20,109 residential properties, 957 commercial properties, 800 apartments, 28 industrial properties, 13 public utilities and 241 parcels of vacant land — came to a total of $32,221,783,022, an increase from the 2019 Grand List’s net value of $31,986,949,038.
kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
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