The state requires towns to reassess values when they fall below 75 percent of market value.
OXFORD – This town will need to undergo a property revaluation within the next three years, selectmen were told Thursday.
Values have risen sharply on shorefront property, and people “from away” are paying the asking prices on those homes, said Donna Hayes of Maine Equalization Consultants. She and Mike Austin have been the town’s assessors’ agents since 1994, making sure assessments are adjusted to keep pace with changes in market values. Since the last revaluation in 1989, the pair have been able to make annual adjustments in assessments to keep values in line with state requirements, Hayes said.
The state requires towns to reassess values when they fall to 75 percent or below of market value.
“The market is changing tremendously,” Hayes said. “People are buying more, and they are paying more.”
Shorefront property in town is at 65 percent of market value, she said. Even though the rest of the town is at 75 percent of market value, “the fairness of our assessments are getting out of balance.”
In other words, she said, people who can afford to buy high-priced shorefront homes aren’t being taxed as much, proportionately, as residents in lower-priced homes.
“We’ve maintained these values for 14 years to maintain a good quality rating,” but the imbalances are getting too large to justify, she said.
Hayes suggested the town start putting aside funds this year and the next two years to do a townwide revaluation by 2006 or 2007.
Selectman Mike Thompson said it’s a shame that residents who have big homes and who have lived in town all their lives might be driven out of town by taxes they cannot pay. “You’re going to force us out of town. Look what happened to Waterford.”
Thompson then mentioned fellow Selectman Roger Smedberg’s property, which is run as a farm but sits on a prime stretch of Route 26.
Hayes said land such as Smedberg’s “has to be valued for its current use. That’s the law.”
She said it behooves the town to take plenty of time in advance to prepare for a revaluation, especially in terms of updating card files and property information.
Comments are no longer available on this story