Property Reval Proceeds without Homestead Option

Ossining town officials have decided against implementing the Homestead Option during the townwide property revaluation.

As New York State explains it, the Homestead Option prevents any large shift of the property tax burden to the residential class of property owners after a revaluation. In a revaluation, changes a remade to individual property assessments so that they are correct and uniform -- as the law requires. These changes result in increases to some individual residential property owners whose properties were under assessed before the revaluation. However, the homestead tax option prevents any large shift to the residential class of properties.

The trouble is, the Homestead Option usually means that homeowners of condominium and townhouse developments lose their lower tax rate.

Ossining officials

The reval itself is ongoing. Town Supervisor Sue Donnelly reminded residents in her March 6 Supervisor’s Update that “As we move forward with the reassessment, many of you are receiving your data mailer which will ask you to confirm that the information is correct. Please look over the form and return it to Tyler Technologies with or without corrections. You will be getting the form whether or not the interior of your house was inspected.

“If you find errors in the data mailer, please get them back to Tyler Technologies. Tyler may call you to set up an appointment to re-inspect the property, or, if the corrections are simple, they may just process your correction.”

Here’s the town board’s message about the Homestead Option:

After considerable review and analysis by this Board and in consultation with legal counsel and the Town Assessor, the Board has determined it is in the best interest of the entire community to table, or suspend pursuit of, the Homestead Option.

We want YOU, the community, to understand that we have given significant thought to this issue. During the process of fully evaluating all the impacts that the Homestead Option may have on all of our taxing elements, we realize that we cannot tackle both the first revaluation in 40 years, and at the same time, tackle the additional complexities involved with adopting Homestead.

We realize there are numerous potential groups that could be significantly impacted by Homestead, including single family residential property owners, condo owners, co-op residential owners, and business & commercial property owners.

In fairness to the community members, to the Assessor, and to this Board, we need to focus on the revaluation in its own right. To reiterate, we are tabling the Homestead Option.

It will be the prerogative of a future Town Board to reconsider the Homestead Option if the Town of Ossining undergoes a subsequent revaluation.