Like many Brunswick homeowners in recent weeks, Bill Hayes was shocked when he opened a letter from the town revealing his property taxes would nearly double due to a property reassessment.
“I was stupefied,” Hayes said.
Hayes said the new assessment valued his home at $762,000. Last year, it was $287,000. He said his property taxes are expected to surge from about $6,000 to $11,000.
“How many people have enough discretionary funds to handle that increase?” he said. “How many people have an extra $5,000 laying around?”
Hayes is among 62% of town property owners who will see a property tax increase due to the reassessment, while 22% will see no change and 15% will see a tax decrease, according to Assessor Taylor Burns.
State law requires municipal assessments to average between 70% and 110% of market value, and Brunswick’s assessment was at 58%, which led town officials to commission a reassessment, the first since 2017.
Town Manager John Eldridge emphasized the reassessment shifts the tax burden among different property owners, like homeowners and business owners, and does not increase the total amount of property taxes the town collects.
“What is changing with these adjustments is how that burden is spread, and because residential has seen such an increase in market sales in the last few years, it’s going to bear a bigger burden of the pie than commercial because commercial hasn’t gone up as much,” Eldridge recently told the Town Council.
The reassessment this year evaluated the town’s 9,721 properties, which were valued at $5.1 billion, a 62% increase over 2022. Duplexes and triplexes increased in value the most at 97%, while mobile homes increased by 90%, single-family homes increased by 72% and condominiums increased by 54%.
The increase in property value translates to a projected drop in the property tax rate, from $21.69 per $1,000 value to $14.50 per $1,000 value. The tax rate is determined by essentially dividing a community’s budget by its total taxable value. As values increase, the tax rate will decrease and vice-versa.
The Town Council in May passed a $92.1 million annual budget, a 9.2% increase over last year’s. At the time, it was expected to increase the tax rate 7.4% because property valuations were well below market value.
“When we do these reassessments to bring everyone back up to the same level of assessment,” Burns said in an email, “it has the effect of some taxes going up, some down, and some staying the same. Had we not made these adjustments, the percentage seeing a tax increase would have been higher simply because the budget had increased from last year.”
Some town councilors were worried about tax hikes for mobile homeowners.
“A lot of these people are on fixed incomes, and this is going to be a major impact,” Councilor David Watson said.
About 250 mobile homeowners who didn’t owe property taxes because they used tax-relief programs like the homestead exemption are expected to be required to pay them now that their property values increased.
“They’re going to be paying taxes for the first time, and I’m sensitive to that because this is the poorest segment of our town,” Councilor Nathaniel Shed said. “It feels like it’s not fair.”
The reassessments were determined by market surveys, comparable sales and field work, among other factors. Property owners who believe their reassessment is wrong can contact the assessor’s office until Aug. 31 for an “informal review,” according to Burns. An appeal form can be found on the town’s website. Once the town commits taxes, which is expected to happen in September, property owners have 185 days to file an official appeal. The first tax payments are projected to be due around mid-October. The town allows property owners to pay their tax bill in two installments in mid-October and mid-April.
Maine has a host of property tax–relief programs, and the town website includes information about applying. Those with “exceptional cases” can also appeal to the Town Council for tax relief.
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