That being said, I would like to offer some of the remarks shared from my communication with other officials
on this matter.
Every abatement is treated as a separate entity by the BTLA or courts.
An abatement is not litigation, an appeal is.
The purpose of an abatement is to determine an opinion of value for a property based on the April 1 date of the
abatement year.
It is believed that the language "failure to respond is a denial" appears to have been added to RSA 76:16 at some
later date. I have not researched this yet, but will do so.
Based on information and belief in communicating with state experts, they believe the language was added to
account for an accidental abatement misplacement or oversight that would cause an abatement to inadvertently
be overlooked.
Based on information and belief in communicating with state experts, it is not intended to be means for
deliberately deciding to skip it.
The Board of Assessor or Selectmen are responsible for approval, denial, or failure to respond.
One Chief stated that they had never used "failure to respond" for a denial and that all applications are acted on.
One Chief stated that they act on all abatments that do not have a representative. They did say that commercial
properties that do have a representative sometimes do not receive a letter of denial, but the Chief is in frequent
communication with these people and knows them well, for example, CPTM as a representative.
One Chief said they almost never do not respond to an abatement and only have done so on commercial
properties with representatives. They said that the BTLA frowns about just ignoring an application without
good cause.
Here are some procedural changes I would like the Board to consider:
1. All abatement applications submitted, that do not have a representative assigned, will be acted on, either
approved or denied, with a letter sent.
2. The final abatement list provided to the Board will clearly show abatements that were deemed denied by
failure to respond. The board will then be able to monitor what properties fall in this category.
3. Anyone who submits an application that is being acted on will be allowed to know who the Certified
Supervisor Assessor is assigned perform the abatement or provide oversight. If the abatement is
assigned to a certified assessor to do the work, this information will be public for the property owner.
4. As it stands right now the abatement list does provide the name of the assessor assigned to the property,
so this is a public document and property owners can have this information. Additionally, the assessor
contacts the property owner to visit the property and review the card.
5. However, property owners whose properties are listed with consultants are not allowed to have the name
of the consultant. I believe this may not be legal and may be an unfair process for those with abatements.
Property owners whose abatements are assigned to a consultant have no way to verify that a certified
supervisor assessor is addressing their application. They have to use a more cumbersome and extensive
Right-To-Know process to figure this out.
6. All property owners that request placement on the agenda for communication regarding their abatement
will not be denied the request. You can establish the rule that they will only have 1 opportunity to
address the board, etc.
Here is why I am requesting these procedural changes.
1. J was told by Attorney Bolton that Ms. Kleiner was handling my 2019 abatement. Ms. Kleiner is not a
certified supervisor assessor but she did provide a list that showed the abatement was placed with a
consultant.
