Livingston Property Owners Prepare For Town-Wide Revaluation

LIVINGSTON, NJ — When Livingston’s town-wide revaluation takes effect next year, many homeowners will see changes to their property values. But whether that also means changes to their local property taxes remains to be seen.

Pursuant to state law, Livingston Township was ordered by the Essex County Board of Taxation to undertake a town-wide revaluation. The new valuations take effect in 2020, municipal officials stated in a news release earlier this week.

Appraisal Systems Inc. (ASI) has been performing individual property audits for Livingston since November 2018, officials said.

Information on what is involved in a revaluation, plus an interactive map of ASI inspector locations in Livingston, is available here.

Livingston town officials will hold two public information forums about the revaluation on Wednesday, Feb. 27 and Wednesday, March 6. The sessions will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. on the lower level of the Senior/Community Center at 204 Hillside Avenue.

The township is one of several in the area that was recently ordered to conduct a property revaluation by the Essex County Board of Taxation. Other Essex County towns that have conducted revaluations in the past few years include Caldwell, Belleville, Millburn and Verona.

According to ASI’s website:

“The Township of Livingston has been ordered by the Essex County Board of Taxation and the New Jersey Division of Taxation to perform a revaluation program to be implemented for tax year 2020. The revaluation will ensure uniform and equitable assessments throughout the municipality and account for the recent changes in the real estate market… The new property values for 2020 will be determined based on their estimated market value as of October 1, 2019 (the statutory date required by law).”

According to the New Jersey Treasury Department, a property revaluation is a program undertaken by a municipality to appraise all real property within the taxing district according to its "full and fair value."

Learn more about property revaluations in New Jersey here.

"A revaluation program seeks to spread the tax burden equitably within a municipality," the NJ Treasury Department states. "Real property must be assessed at the same standard of value to ensure that every property owner is paying his or her fair share of the property tax. For example, two properties having essentially the same market value should be paying essentially the same amount in property taxes."

Although almost all properties' values rise during a revaluation, it doesn't necessarily mean that all property taxes will increase, state officials say.

"You might now be thinking, 'How can my assessment increase and my taxes not go up?'" state officials explain. "Remember, assessments are merely a base used to apportion the tax burden. The tax burden is the amount that your municipality must raise for the operation of county and local government and support of the school system."

During a revaluation, assessors visit individual homes and conduct both inside and outside inspections. Property owners who disagree with the eventual assessed value of their homes can arrange an informal hearing or file an appeal with the County Board of Taxation.

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