Author(s): KATHLEEN MOORE

Gazette Reporter Date: February 26, 2010

Section: B: Local

It has been nine months since 500 city residents stood in line all day –and through the evening — to grieve their property assessments. Mostof them lost their fight. But they haven’t given up. Already, many ofthem are preparing for Round 2 on May 25.

In one indication of a large Grievance Day, 28 residents have already hired Armstrong Appraisals to help them fight what they consideredto be unfairly high assessments. And appraiser David Fontana hasturned away dozens more who want to fight their assessments but donot, in his opinion, have a strong chance of winning.

At this time last year, just two residents had hired that company. Bythe time Grievance Day rolled around on the fourth Tuesday in May,Armstrong Appraisals was working with 79 residents.

The main difference is that this year, many assessments seem correct,Fontana said. More than 100 assessments were changed afterGrievance Day.

“Last year I took 75 percent of the people who came to me. This yearI’m turning away 50 percent of them,” he said, explaining that he looks at each resident’s assessment before agreeing to take their case. “I think everybody is just in a recessionary bind and saying, ‘I can’tpay these taxes,’ ” he said.

He is advertising that he can help, telling prospective customers thatall but six of his 79 clients got assessment reductions last year.

City officials challenged that claim but could not provide records showing how many grievances were granted or rejected. The city’sBoard of Assessment Review granted just 68 grievances out of 1,075 filed. Most property owners accepted that decision, but 176 residentstook their grievance to small claims court.

All of those have been decided, Corporation Counsel L. John VanNorden said.”We won some. There were compromises in some. We didn’t winsome,” he said. “That’s the way the process goes.”He is also defending the city against 238 tax appeals, which are filedby those who do not live at the property in question. Most of thoseproperties are commercial. Of those appeals, 140 have not yet beendecided.More cases will be added to that docket.

Van Norden has taken theunusual step of appealing some small claims court decisions.”Because they’re wrong,” he said, adding that his staff picked the ones”that are most glaringly wrong.”The city also took the rare step of sending an attorney to every smallclaims case.Van Norden acknowledged that fighting in small claims court andthen appealing those decisions is highly unusual but said it wasimportant to insist that hearing officers follow state laws.”The city is not going to simply stand by,” Van Norden said.He cited one decision in which a hearing officer decided to reduce anassessment despite the existence of a very recent arm’s-length sale thatsupported the assessment.”That’s simply unconscionable,” Van Norden said.Assessments are intended to indicate what the property’s market pricewould be if a stranger bought it, called an “arm’s-length sale.”

Recent sales of that sort are often used to either defend the assessment or, ifthe sales are lower than the assessment, argue that the assessmentshould be reduced.”Under the law, arm’s-length sales, that’s the most important factor toconsider,” Van Norden said. “We are of course going to challenge it.

We have a right to protect the 22,000 property owners who did notgrieve their taxes because the purpose of the assessment is toapportion the tax fairly.”

Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 ormoore@dailygazette.com.?

Archives Technical and Billing questions: For questions regardingyour Archives account, please send an email todailygazette@newsbank.comCopyright (c) 2010 The Daily Gazette Co. All Rights Reserved.

Author(s): KATHLEEN MOORE

Gazette Reporter Date: April 17, 2009

Section: B: Local

Thousands of city residents are scouring sales data and studying theirneighbors’ houses in the hopes of proving that their own home is notas valuable as the city says it is. There are just six weeks untilGrievance Day, and for many residents, the learning curve is provingto be quite steep.

About 1,200 residents have protested their reassessments so far, buthalf of them had no data to prove their case, Assessor Patrick Mastrosaid.

Instead, many residents who bought their homes in recent years triedto argue at informal reviews that their assessment should be reduced15 percent because the national average sale price for existing homeshas fallen 15 percent in the past year.

The trouble is, that’s a national average — not Schenectady’s average.For local reassessments, assessors look even closer, comparing housesales in the same neighborhoods and sometimes on the same street.

“The biggest obstacle I see for taxpayers is they don’t understand theprocess. They don’t understand valuation,” Mastro said. “People arehaving a hard time understanding purchase price.”

But as residents prepare for the formal battle on Grievance Day, May26, city officials are urging them not to turn to professional appraisersfor help. They said some are unscrupulous scam artists just trying toget money from desperate residents.

“It’s just looking to make dollars off people,” said city consultant JohnPaolino. “There is no need at this time to have taxpayers go out andpay hard-earned dollars for an appraisal.”

A residential appraisal typically costs $300 to $500.

Mastro was quick to say that many appraisers are trustworthy but saidhe has seen a number of fraudulent appraisals during the informalreview process.

Mastro is considering reporting those appraisers to the Department ofState, which could pull those workers’ licenses.”

I have received a number of appraisals that may be subjected to that.I’m still going over that,” Mastro said. “I’ve already reviewed someappraisals, and it was clear the appraiser willfully took the assignmentto challenge the assessment. I’m not oblivious to reality and whatpeople will do to make a couple hundred dollars.”

He said those appraisals compared the customer’s house to houses thatwere clearly dissimilar.Making mistakes of that nature ruin the entire appraisal. Residents turn to appraisers to sift through the hundreds of property sales in Schenectady and find the few houses that are nearly identical to their own. Determining precisely what counts as a “comparable sale” is sotricky that some appraisers say residents can’t do it on their own.”

I don’t think they’re going to have the expertise to do it,” said real estate appraiser David Fontana, who recently rented a large Erie Boulevardsign for a day to advertise his company, Armstrong Appraisals. Themessage read: “Fight your tax assessment!”

“Anyone can choose comps, but you have to choose the right comps,” Fontana said. “I’ve seen many people go in and the assessor says, ‘Youdidn’t choose true comparables.’ “But Mastro said residents don’t have to pay to fight their reassessment.

They can look at the list of house sales for free at the city assessor’soffice, choose their comparables and take their data to the Board ofAssessment Review for free.

He warned that an appraisal, even one that supports the resident’sargument, won’t always persuade the board. Fraudulent appraisals will not pass muster, he said.

Fontana thinks a proper appraisal will carry weight with the board. Headded that he, too, wants the state to pull the licenses of appraiserswho do shoddy work.

“Some people are out there not doing as thorough a job as theyshould,” Fontana said. “I think it’s important to get references, checkthe Better Business Bureau, check their license.”

Licenses can be found in a search on the Department of State Website, www.dos.state.ny.us.But Fontana said appraisers are also being pressured by Schenectadyhomeowners who want to be assured of a lower assessment.

“I’m getting a lot of phone calls where people say, ‘I’m not going topay for an appraisal unless you tell me what the value is first,’ “Fontana said. “We can’t do that. We can look at it and say, ‘You havea case.’ ”

Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 ormoore@dailygazette.com.?

Archives Technical and Billing questions: For questions regardingyour Archives account, please send an email todailygazette@newsbank.comCopyright (c) 2009 The Daily Gazette Co. All Rights Reserved.

Newspaper of Saratoga County

By Peter Miller

Home mortgage interest rates have been at historic lows for several weeks, and lenders are doing a brisk business in refinance loans. In fact, in August, refinancing accounted for approximately 83 percent of all mortgage loans written. Home sales continue to slump, and purchase mortgages are only a small portion of the mortgage business today. At these low interest rates, lenders are anxious to sell their new loans, typically to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, to enable them to continue making more loans. Following the sub-prime mortgage meltdown of two years ago, the federal government has tightened the parameters within which these two agencies can operate. The new regulations affect the requirements for credit scores, homeowners’ and title insurance, acceptable debt-to-income ratios, appraisals, documentation, and more.

After the housing bubble burst and home prices began to decline, it became apparent that property appraisals no longer accurately reflectedactual value after a short time. As a result, most lenders now feel that an appraisal is valid for only six months maximum. That might havebeen good news for the firms that provide property appraisals, but the new regulations did not stop there.During that bubble, inflated selling prices sometimes caused lenders, buyers, sellers, or realtors, to pressure the appraiser to value a propertyat more than its worth in order to qualify for a large mortgage. In an effort to eliminate this pressure and provide greater independence forappraisers, the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) was enacted in March 2008. One important facet of HVCC was to encourage lendersto outsource appraisals to appraisal management companies rather than order their own appraisals. In this way, the appraiser is not workingfor the lender, the borrower, or anyone involved in the sale.Since March 2008, the involvement of these management companies has grown from 15 percent of all appraisals to 80 percent. However,when these companies shop for a local appraiser for a particular property, they really shop – often offering to pay only a fraction of thetraditional cost. Needless to say, this has caused much alarm and dismay among appraisal firms.“The biggest change in the appraisal industry after the mortgage meltdown has been the HVCC legislation,” said Tony Mariotti of EmpireAppraisal Network. “It’s designed to separate the mortgage lenders from the appraisers via a third party. That third party is a managementcompany that shops for the cheapest appraiser, so they can maximize their own revenue. Some newer appraisers are getting an opportunity tolow-ball their way into the market without much experience here. They often come from outside the area, and they don’t know this market.”Mariotti feels that the implementation of HVCC is an overreaction to the close relationship that existed between some lenders and appraisers.In fact, there has been pressure on Congress to take immediate steps to “restore customary and reasonable fees” to real estate appraisals,claiming that the current system is not a free-market approach. It has seriously cut into the revenues of a number of appraisal firms withinand outside our region.

“My partners, Ron Murphy and Dan Munn, and I have been diversifying to offset the loss of revenue last year,” said Mariotti. “We recentlypurchased two prominent buildings in Ballston Spa to provide another income stream and give us better control over our business. However,with interest rates so low, we’re very busy again. We cover the whole state of New York.”After the slide in home values over the past two years, there is one element in the appraisal process that has grown increasingly troublesome.It is finding recent sales of comparable properties, or comps. “Often, in trying to find comparables,” said Mariotti, “you are forced to look atsales over the past year or so – what I consider the very bottom of the market slide. And those selling prices will affect the appraised value of acurrent sale.”

David Fontana, owner of Armstrong Appraisals LLC, said the recent changes in legislation governing appraisals are literally forcing dozens oflocal appraisers and hundreds across the country out of business. “Going through third party management companies, appraisers are nowbeing asked to perform appraisals at one-half the price they would previously have charged,” said Fontana. He feels it is an unsustainablesituation.

The appraised values of homes have gone down throughout most of New York state, according to Fontana, but not simply because sellingprices are lower. Market time also affects appraised value. A house that used to sell in two or three months now may take six to nine months.And because houses stay on the market longer, there are more houses on the market at any given time. Foreclosures also play a bigger role indetermining the value of a property. Short sales now total at least one out of every ten sales in this region, and those lower prices affect thevalue of the homes in that area. This is all considered in an appraisal.

Fontana explained, “While the volume of home sales has eroded, there are more foreclosures and refinances today, so there are moreopportunities for appraisers. Work also comes from divorce attorneys and estate attorneys. And for full-service appraisers like me, thecommercial market is pretty stable. While a residential appraisal might take two or three hours, a commercial procedure might require 30 or40 hours. The complexity is greater and so are the fees.”

Rick Ley, owner of Advanced Appraisals LLC, said that he sees fewer appraisals today due both to the end of the housing bubble and to theHVCC regulation. Regarding the reduction in fees caused by the intervention of management companies, Ley was hopeful. “The President hasjust signed legislation that will take effect within 90 days that will require these management companies to pay a ‘fair fee’ for appraisalservices. Independent surveys will determine what constitutes a fair fee.”

“Home values are starting to increase,” said Ley, “and the low mortgage interest rates have boosted refinancing activity. That means morebusiness for our firm. But we still receive calls from management companies asking if we’ll do an appraisal for a fraction of our normal rate,and we say, ‘Absolutely not.’” Fortunately, that situation should end soon with the new legislation. Advanced Appraisals provides residentialand commercial appraisals throughout the Capital Region and Glens Falls.

Although real estate sales, interest rates, and foreclosure activity are all somewhat volatile today, an appraisal is still the best way to get arealistic report on the fair market value of your residential or commercial property. And one of these trained, experienced appraisers can giveyou an objective look at how your property stacks up.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

David Fontana Owner/Chief Appraiser Armstrong Appraisals, LLC

David Fontana

Name: David Fontana

Title: Owner/Chief Appraiser

Company: Armstrong Appraisals, LLC

Location: P.O. Box 5016, Clifton Park, NY 12065

Birthplace and date: Watertown, N.Y.

College: Canisius College, BS in Finance, 1990

What do you do now and what are you planning for the future?

We are an independentappraisal company servicing all of NYS. We offer both traditional and alternative solutionsfor real estate appraisal services and collateral valuation products. We are committed toworking closely with our clients to deliver the products and services that best fit their needs.Appraisals are in compliance with FHLMC/FNMA, FIRREA, Regulatory Agency, andUSPAP standards, as well as FHA and VA requirements. Additionally, reports are reviewedfor each client’s specific requirements and for state specific standards. We at ArmstrongAppraisals understand the importance of customer service, quality of work and expedientturnaround time. We achieve this by having our in-house quality assurance team evaluateall projects, as well as with an extensive review program.

Key to success: Hard work and persistence.

Contact Armstrong Appraisels

Author: Tel: 781-878-4540 / Fax: 781-871-1853 / 800-654-4993 / info@nerej.com / www.nerej.com

Good grief! My assessment is too high!

Cathy Woodruff The Advocate

Updated 11:14 a.m., Monday, May 23, 2011

If you’ve had a nagging feeling that the property taxes youpay on your house are higher than they ought to be, at leastwhen compared with other similar homes in yourcommunity, the deadline is here to do something about it.

This Tuesday, the fourth one in May, is that special dateknown as Grievance Day in most area towns and cities(there are a handful of exceptions), and it’s your last chanceuntil next year to make a case that your assessment is higher than it ought to be.

Today’s column is dedicated to giving readers a sense of how to go about filing a complaint — or “grieving”– an assessment and what to expect if you do.

The good news is that there are more resources than ever to help an average homeowner decide whether itcould be worthwhile to go through the process and, if so, to help the homeowner build a case.

This year, for the first time, state law required municipalities to post their tentative assessment rolls onlineafter they were finalized on May 1. You can see the rolls by going directly to your city, town or countywebsite or to the state Office of Real Property Tax Services site, which also has links.

I took a look at the tentative assessment for my house in Niskayuna to see if it would be worth taking a shotat lowering my own home’s assessed value. My conclusion was that it’s probably not.

I initially was encouraged when I saw that our immediate neighbors to the west have a noticeably lowerassessment on a house I’d always considered much like ours. But then I looked closer. Their square footageis less. Their house is classified as a “bungalow,” compared to our “old style” house.

Next, I eyed the assessment for the house to the east of us, also “old style” with a bit less square footage.That one actually has a slightly higher assessment.

There also wasn’t much to encourage me on a roster of recently sold homes, with photos. Few were similarto the age, size, style and neighborhood of our house. Those that I thought came close were sold for priceswithin a reasonable range of our full-value assessment.

Still, some houses caught my eye as I perused the list. One house purchased in August 2009 for $138,500has a tentative assessment of $200,000. Maybe the sale price was lower than the actual value for somegood reason — like a transaction within the family or under pressing circumstances such as a job transfer –but, if not, I’d be tempted to challenge that assessment if the house were mine.

These are the just the sorts of issues experts tell me one should research before contesting an assessment.It all can add weight to your argument when you file the required complaint form (form RP-524 on thestate ORPTS website) and if you appear before members of the board of assessment review on Tuesday.

If you strike out with the local Board of Assessment Review, you may want to consider taking yourchallenge another step and seeking a Small Claims Assessment Review in court. But that’s an issue forlater. For now, let’s just concentrate on the immediate options.

There’s not much time left, so complete your four-page RP-524 asap, and call ahead to the assessor’s officeto check on the hours the board will meet to hear cases. Boards in smaller towns are more likely to meet ona date other than May 24 because they may need to accommodate an assessor who works formultiple communities.

In Clifton Park, Assessor Walter Smead says the 5-member board will hear arguments from propertyowners who want to appear in person from 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday. Since May 1, he has beenscheduling appointments and meeting informally with residents who already have gotten the ball rollingwith an application.

This next detail is important: be clear on just what you are contesting.

“A lot of times, people go in and say they’re grieving their taxes,” notes Geoffrey Gloak, a spokesman forthe state Office of Real Property Tax Services. “The assessor is not responsible for the amount of taxessomeone is paying. Saying ‘My taxes are too high’ is not going to be enough to argue that your assessmentshould be lowered.”

Thomas Lane, a tax accountant who lives in Glenville, has made the case for several friends and relativeswho sought to have their assessments lowered in recent years, after successfully challenging his own a fewyears ago.

He argued that his house, built in 2006, was too highly valued when compared with identical homes in thesame development that were built four years earlier, when sale prices were lower.

This year, he said, he’ll be in Halfmoon on behalf of a colleague. And, as always, he’ll go armed withconcrete examples that support his argument.

That means looking for houses with similar size, age and architecture and gathering documentation onrecent sale prices. Photographs also can help show the assessment review panel hearing your case thatyour house really is much like one with a far lower assessment, Lane said.

“If you know your neighborhood, you can tell what houses are similar to yours,” Lane said. “Gettingcomparable properties is probably the key thing for a person to look at initially.”

Then, lay out the case clearly and politely.

Lane recalls seeing homeowners who misunderstood the implications of a town revaluation a few yearsago, when assessments were converted from partial value to full value, and assumed the change wouldautomatically translate into sharply higher taxes on their property.

“People were outraged, going in unprepared with no proof of other comparable properties. I’m sure theygot denied,” he said. “You definitely want to know what you are talking about.”

David Fontana, who owns Armstrong Appraisals, is one of the people property owners call to help ensurethat they do, indeed, know what they’re talking about.

“Grievance boards turn people down if they don’t have enough research,” he said.

Fontana has been appraising properties in preparation for this grievance period since November and wasstill at it on Friday, aiming to make the best of an especially busy year.

He’s done 130 grievance-related appraisals locally and about 65 others scattered around the state for 2011,which is about double what he did last year, he estimates.

Even though people aren’t, in fact, contesting their taxes through the grievance process, Fontana suspects — as I do — that a tough economy is fueling more grievances.

“I really just think everything is bearing down and something has to give,” he said.

Reach the Advocate at advocate@timesunion.com.

The Advocate appears in print Thursdays and Sundays,and online at http://timesunion.com/advocate.Grievance Instructions

Almost anything you need to know about challenging your assessment in New York State is on the websitefor the Office of Real Property Tax Services: http://www.orps.state.ny.us/

Resources there include:What to Do if You Disagree With Your Assessement, a 12-page instructional booklet

A printable copy of complaint form RP-524A brochure: How to Estimate the Market Value of Your Home

Links to online assessment data, local assessment calendars and contact information

Source: NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Real Property Tax Services.

Published 12:00 a.m., Thursday, April 14, 2011

C.W. Worldwide Meetings Inc., Burnt Hills, won a $82,080contract from the U.S. Army Contracting Command,Seaside, Calif., for lodging services.

grab bag

C.W. Worldwide Meetings Inc., Burnt Hills, won a $82,080contract from the U.S. Army Contracting Command,Seaside, Calif., for lodging services.

Armstrong Appraisals LLC, Clifton Park, was awarded a$11,800 contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NewYork, for professional, administrative and managementsupport services.

on the board

The Sand Lake Business Association recently elected its 2011 board and officers. They are: president,Valerie Balga, Uncle Marty’s Adirondack Grill; vice president, Ed Patanian, Patanian Homes; treasurer,Eugene Urgento, Pie Squared; secretary, Miller Young, Miller’s Pharmacy; councilmen: Marty Balga, UncleMarty’s Adirondack Grill; Shane Cahill, Realty USA; Debra Roy, Sand Lake Center for the Arts; and DennisTremont, Tremont Lumber.

open for business

Zieker Eye Ophthalmology P.C., a full-service eye care practice, has opened an office at 14 Mountain LedgeDrive in Wilton. Specializing in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of ocular conditions like glaucoma,cataracts, macular degeneration, dry eye syndrome and retinal disease, the practice offers exams,screenings and treatment. Christopher R. Zieker and Steven D. Clark will lead the practice.

Compiled by Adrienne Freeman, Bebe Nyquist, Tom Quinlan, Azra Haqqie and Jennifer Patterson.

By LINDA KELLETT

For the C-S-EPALATINE BRIDGE — The hiring of an appraisal firm was approved by members of the Palatine Town Council last week inconnection with a company’s filing of a legal challenge in an effort to reduce their property’s taxable value.

Town Attorney Kenneth Ayers, of the Ayers Law Firm of Fort Plain, updated officials on the status of the company’s Article 7petition during the town council’s November 16 meeting. During his comments to council members, Ayers noted a settlement offerwas made on behalf of the town during a late-October conference between a judge and officials representing KZT Enterprises LLC.

The local company, which is registered with the state Department of State with an Amsterdam address, owns a mobile home parkin the town.

Ayers said the town reportedly offered a settlement with the company for the “reduction in assessed value that they asked for in thepetition.”

He alleged, “I was informed by the attorney for KZT that they didn’t mean ‘assessed value’ when they said assessed value. Theywanted a reduction in ‘market value’ to that number… which would have been a 55 percent reduction in the taxes.”

He maintained the firm’s attorney rejected any settlement offer. In Ayers’ view, no settlement is likely at this juncture.

In order to prepare for a potential trial in early May, Ayers recommended that the town hire an appraiser to inspect the disputedproperty between the scheduled dates of December 3 and January 3, 2012. Appraisal reports are due to the court by February 11,2012, he said.

Toward that end, three companies with experience with trailer park appraisals submitted proposals for council members’consideration. Among those were Armstrong Appraisals out of Clifton Park, Empire State Appraisal Company of Albany, andBryce Appraisal Service out of Cohoes.

In order to prepare the kind of report that’s needed for a trial, Ayers said the firm hired needs to appraise the value of the land, the“buildings fixed on the real estate,” improvements to the property, and each individual trailer, of which there are 17.

Following an executive session to address the firm’s selection, council members opted to hire Armstrong Appraisals at a cost of$4,600, with an additional cost of $225 per hour for court-related costs or pre-trial consultations.

By comparison, ESAC would have charged $7,500 for the same kind of report and had an hourly rate of $150 per hour; and BryceAppraisal would have charged $2,000 for the appraisal with a rate of $500 per day, Ayers said.

In other business pertaining to the attorney, Supervisor Brian Sweet asked Ayers if a multiple-year fire contract with Ephratah thatcalls for a $1,000 per year increase could or should be renegotiated in light of the state’s two percent tax cap.

Ayers said he’d have to review the contract to see if the town, which could be put in a “financial bind,” is bound by the two percenttax cap on an obligation that was negotiated before the tax cap was put in place.

He said he’d be willing to contact the entity involved to see if the town could get some relief.

Finally, a proposed law, modeled after one enacted in the town of Oppenheim and related to the harboring of excessive dogs, wasintroduced by town dog control officer Cheryl Sebastian and discussed by council members.

Because of concerns related to provisions of the ordinance, however, officials asked Sebastian to continue looking for otherlegislation on which to base a local law.

The rules were under consideration because of alleged complaints about a local kennel owner who has more than three dozencanines on his property.