Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 16
Right now, | guess my house is worth a little bit more, | choose to live in it and everything else like that and |
am going to pay the taxes like everybody else. It’s bad to be us right now. But this it the way it basically is and
it’s, | don’t see any way around it. We just have to got to do what Nashuans really do and grin and bear it and
Carry on.
Alderwoman Kelly
| Know in the presentation that we had last we talked a little bit about some of the commercial properties that
weren't part of the assessments. Are there ways we can make sure that doesn’t happen in the future and then
that balance can maybe shift.
Mayor Donchess
Remember that no assessments have been adjusted for five years, so these sales that have taken place —
both sales in commercial and residential have not changed anyone’s assessments. If this big apartment
complex sold for a lot more than the assessment, it didn’t change the assessment, but on the other hand the
home that was assessed at $200,000.00 but sold at $300,0000.00 — it’s still assessed at $200,000.00. They
are all remaining constant. But your question is can we capture some of these values on some of these so-
called disqualified sales. The sales are disqualified and things become very technical in this area I’ve learned.
They are disqualified only for the purposes of the creation of the equalization ratio. When we go to revalue all
the properties in the City, these sales won’t be disregarded. So all the sales, assuming that they have any
bearing on fair market value will be considered. Disqualification can reoccur for various sort of trivial reasons.
There’s more than one parcel involved even though the parcels are right next to each other and are basically
part of the same property. That was the reason for the disqualification of the property, or one of the reasons,
for the property up on Somerset Parkway. When KRT looks at this, they are going to say “yeah but so what, |
mean all these parcels are part of the same complex”. There were five or six parcels that you would look at as
being just one property but it’s all divided up on the deed. So they would look at that sale as being very
relevant and reflective of real, fair market values for that kind of large residential and will not be disregarded.
Now some sales would be, like if somebody sells their home to their child for a dollar or something like that, |
mean that’s not really taken seriously as a fair market value transaction. But most of these transactions you’ve
heard about being disqualified will be considered as part of the overall revaluation. And John can correct me if
| say anything that incorrect.
John Griffin
And furthermore, the experts that we would like to hire for this job, they have a data base — they track sales.
For example, this particular large complex there might be a sale similar to it in Vermont, Maine or
Massachusetts, those property acquirers, they are not just looking at Nashua, they are trying to look at what
would fit in their asset mix. So that’s the value of having these folks, one of the values, we can get into a little
bit more. The disqualification, the DRA has a statistical person basically in charge of the equalization and you
have to make the call locally, is it disqualified or not. They plug it into their data base and they give us back
numbers. There might have been 1,500 sales in one particular year, there could be 400 that are disqualified.
So the assessing group have to make the call as the Mayor just indicated, was it an arm’s length transaction,
was it government backed, a lot of, | mean there are 40 disqualification numbers that our teams send up to the
DRA. They don’t have the bandwidth to determine whether any of these sales are arm’s length of not, but
when you come to re-valuing the property it’s a lot more serious and taken a lot more serious. If you get an
assessment that’s wrong, as we discussed, the informal hearing process for anybody who is a tax payer and
they have the ability to file for abatements. The Board of Assessors would look at that, if they deny it they
could take it to the Board of Land & Tax Appeals or the Court. So you have to take this very seriously on both
ends and make sure the value is defensible. You'll note in the contract a lot of language about this KRT
Company helping us defend the values for a period of time. And the contract itself, it's very prescriptive. | was
amazed, I’ve learned a lot about assessing and | was amazing how the DRA has the power of basically having
these contracts very prescriptive. They have definitions in the front, they have sections of the contract so we
