Think Your Property Taxes Are Too High? You Might Be Right (and There Is a Form for That)

Nobody enjoys the property tax bill, and around here it is no small thing. The Class 1 tax rate for 1-to-3-family homes in New York City is 19.843% for the current tax year, applied to your assessed value. And the city has even floated a possible “last resort” rate increase of roughly 10% for next year’s budget. If rates go up, every dollar of over-assessment costs you more.

Here is the part most homeowners miss: your tax bill starts with the city’s opinion of what your home is worth. Opinions can be wrong, and the city gives you a way to challenge it every single year.

The form your county hopes you never file

In New York City, the Department of Finance mails every owner a Notice of Property Value each January. If you disagree with it, you file a challenge with the NYC Tax Commission. The deadline for 1-to-3-family homes (Class 1) is March 15. For most co-ops and condos (Class 2) it is March 1. The Tax Commission states it in all caps on its own website: “DEADLINES CANNOT BE EXTENDED.” Miss your window and you wait a full year.

In most Westchester towns, the route is Grievance Day, the third Tuesday in June, filing with your town’s Board of Assessment Review. In Yonkers it is the third Tuesday in November. Same idea, different calendar.

The two-minute check you can do today

Find the assessed value on your January notice. Divide it by 0.06. New York City assesses Class 1 homes at 6% of market value, so that number is the market value the city thinks your home is worth, sometimes called the “effective market value“.

Now ask yourself what your home would actually sell for today. If the city’s number is meaningfully higher than reality, you have grounds for a challenge. Run that math before you file, because if the city’s value is already in line with the market, the appeal goes nowhere.

One more thing worth knowing: your assessed value cannot rise more than 6% in a single year or 20% over five years. Those caps protect you on the way up, but a softening market will not lower your bill on its own. You have to ask.

What to gather while there is still time

October is actually the ideal moment for this, because March 15 arrives fast after the holidays. Your evidence is simple: three to five recent sales of homes like yours in your neighborhood, sold prices, not asking prices.

Filing in NYC uses Form TC108 for Class 1 homes, and you can file online or in person. There is a Department of Finance business center right in the Bronx at 3030 Third Avenue if you prefer to handle it face to face.

If they say no, you are not done

A denied grievance is not the end of the road. New York City homeowners can take a denied claim to Small Claims Assessment Review within 30 days of the final assessment roll. And that route works: a recent NYC Comptroller audit found that 93.4% of Class 1 homeowners who took their cases to Small Claims Assessment Review got their assessments reduced.

This is not a long shot. For the 2024-25 tax year, the Tax Commission granted $3.79 billion in assessment reductions across the city. Some of that money went back to regular homeowners who simply filed the paperwork.

One bonus while you are at it

Check that you are actually enrolled in Basic STAR, or Enhanced STAR if you are 65 or older. It comes straight off your bill, and plenty of owners never signed up. Enrollment runs through the state, not the city.

So here is your October homework. Pull up your property, divide the assessed value by six percent, and see what number the city has in its head. Then screenshot a few comparable sales. When that January notice lands and the March 15 deadline starts ticking, you will be the homeowner who filed, not the one who meant to.

Own in the Bronx, Manhattan, or Westchester and want help pulling comparable sales? Call or text us. We would rather see that money stay in your pocket.