October 11, 2024
It is always important to carefully review your tax bill and/or notices of assessments, but even more so in the year in which your city or town conducts a revaluation.
Each assessment should be carefully reviewed, even if your assessment has not increased substantially, as an appeal immediately after a revaluation maximizes a property owner’s potential tax savings.
Connecticut law requires that each municipality conduct a general revaluation of the real estate within its borders at least once every five years. Given the passage of Connecticut Public Act 22-74, the State’s Revaluation Schedule has shifted slightly with the creation of five new Revaluation Zones which purportedly allows for the coordination of revaluation services and provides a mechanism to create efficiency and municipal cost savings. This new law does not change the fact that municipalities must conduct revaluations in Connecticut every five years, however, the result is that some municipal revaluations are a year shorter or longer to transition into the new schedule.
The purpose of a revaluation is for a municipality to determine the market value of real estate to be used to calculate property taxes.
Once a property’s value is set in a general revaluation, it remains constant over the entire five-year cycle, absent appeal, demolition, improvements or expansion. Of course, the annual taxes usually increase, as a municipality’s mill rate increases incrementally from year to year. Municipalities across the State are on differing revaluation cycles.
The following is a list of Connecticut municipalities conducting revaluations this year:
| Bloomfield | Pomfret |
| Branford | Prospect |
| Brooklyn | Putnam |
| Canterbury | Seymour |
| Coventry | Thompson |
| Hamden | Tolland |
| Mansfield | Torrington |
| Monroe | Voluntown |
| New Fairfield | Wallingford |
| North Branford | West Haven |
| North Haven | Windsor Locks* |
| Old Lyme | Woodbridge |
| Oxford |
*One-year delay as Revaluation was originally scheduled for 10/1/2023
If your municipality is conducting a general revaluation for the October 1, 2024 Grand List you will receive a notice of tax assessment change soon.
Once the notices are issued, there may be a chance to meet informally with the assessor to discuss the new assessment, which should represent 70% of the fair market value of your real estate. However, if a property owner wishes to challenge the assessment formally, a written appeal must be filed with the local Board of Assessment Appeals by the February 20, 2025 statutory deadline.
It is in your best interest to be proactive in monitoring the revaluation process and your new assessment so that you can take all necessary steps to ensure that the assessment is equitable.
For more information about revaluations, contact Nicholas W. Vitti Jr. at 203.653.5435 or nvitti@murthalaw.com and Joseph D. Szerejko at 860.240.6186 or jszerejko@murthalaw.com.
Murtha Cullina is the exclusive member firm in Connecticut for the American Property Tax Counsel (APTC) – the only organization of law firms providing major portfolio owners with a single source for their property tax reporting and tax reduction needs. Nicholas W. Vitti Jr. and Joseph D. Szerejko are the APTC representatives for Connecticut from Murtha Cullina.
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