The Lead Petitioners believe the Town of Hanover’s 2021 final assessment of residential properties is fatally flawed. You can read all about it here.

The Petitioners encourage property owners to look carefully at their assessment property cards and to file abatements by March 1, 2022 if they feel their assessments are unfair.

The Lead Petitioners believe the Town of Hanover’s 2021 preliminary assessment of residential properties is fatally flawed. You can read all about it here.

Preliminary property assessment should have been delivered to your mailboxes today. If you are concerned about your assessment, or know people who are, please email fairtaxhanover@gmail.com. We have been busily reviewing assessment information. Sadly, our early determination is that there are problems with the assessment model that need to be addressed on a town wide basis. Our goal is to ensure that Hanover’s property assessments are fair and equitable.

Richard Joseph & Bruce McLaughry

Lead Petitioners

Hanover, NH 03755

May 19, 2020

Anne M. Stelmach, Clerk

State of New Hampshire

Board of Tax and Land Appeals

Governor Hugh J. Gallen State Office Park

107 Pleasant Street

Concord, NH 03301-3834

Re: Docket No. 29309-19RA

Dear Ms. Stelmach,

The petitioners in the above referenced matter (“Petitioners”) write today to address the May 14, 2020 Reassessment Order issued by the Board of Tax and Land Appeals (“BTLA”). 

Petitioners believe the Reassessment Order leaves unaddressed numerous significant issues of public concern raised in the Taxpayer Petition and that a remedy consisting solely of a reassessment in 2021 is neither fully appropriate nor satisfactory.  

In the Joint Motion filed in this matter by the Department of Revenue Administration (“DRA”) and the Town of Hanover (“Town”), neither party takes any position on the merits of the allegations set forth in the Taxpayer Petition.  Specifically unaddressed are the allegations that the Town’s assessor engaged in sales chasing and other illegal or improper practices in the 2018 Revaluation. Similarly, the claim that assessments throughout Hanover are disproportional is not addressed.    

These are matters of significant public concern and it appears the Town and the DRA have no intention of substantively addressing them. In fact, the Town has posted flat denials of some of the allegations set forth by the Petitioners on its website, including the categorical statement that “Municipal assessors do not engage in Sales Chasing.”^[1] In light of such public denials, a public hearing is both necessary and desirable.

The May 14 Order fails to address the immediately and ongoing harm caused by the disproportionality introduced by the 2018 Revaluation.  Approximately 15 percent of 

In Re: Town of Hanover

Docket No.: 29309-19RA

Page 2 of 3

Hanover property owners have filed for abatement – by any measure, this makes latent disproportionality a truly significant issue; because it rejects (or more accurately, ignores) the Petitioners’ claims, the Town’s abatement process remains enormously flawed. Precedent places the burden of proving disproportionality on the party filing an abatement appeal. Under the circumstances, this burden is both inefficient and unfair.  A BTLA decision that establishes the existence of disproportionality could potentially remove that burden for appellants and the abatement process would be improved for all.

Moreover, Petitioners believe that the entirety of the circumstances surrounding the 2018 Revaluation has evidenced a serious failure of oversight, transparency and accountability by the Town and its agents.  Without a hearing on the merits of Petitioners’ allegations, it now seems likely that it will all get swept under the rug. Such a result would not be in the best interests of Hanover’s citizens, its current and future property owners or principles of good governance which play such a crucial role in the New Hampshire democratic model. And the implications are significant. When property transactions take place, the inequities created by the 2018 Revaluation are amplified.  When buyers and sellers conduct purchase and sales transactions based on a presumption that assessments are fair, when it turns out they are not, there will be a winner and loser. A buyer of an over-assessed property will be unjustly enriched and the seller impoverished.^[2]

For over ten months, Petitioners have prodded the Town in numerous ways to address these issues and to acknowledge publicly the problems with the 2018 Revaluation. To date, the Town has never acknowledged the validity of any of the Petitioners’ specific claims. 

Lastly, Petitioners were hopeful that a timely hearing with the BTLA could accomplish at least a partial remedy for 2020 tax assessments in the matter of under-assessed properties. While properties that have been over-assessed have the potential remedy of abatement, there is no way for the Town to collect the appropriate amount of taxes from a property that has been improperly under-assessed. Petitioners were prepared to propose to the BTLA a method for identifying under-assessed properties and reassessing them for the upcoming year. The Petitioners estimate that there is $2.5 to $3.0 million of tax revenue per year not being collected from under-assessed properties. Hanover taxpayers who are not under-assessed have already born that cost for two years. 

In Re: Town of Hanover

Docket No.: 29309-19RA

Page 3 of 3

In closing, Petitioners respectfully request that the BTLA either:

• Order that Mr. Thomas Hughes finish his investigation and proceed with a BTLA hearing; or 

• Order that the Town, DRA and Petitioners enter into mediation to resolve the issues set forth herein. 

Sincerely,

Richard Joseph & Bruce McLaughry

Lead Petitioners

Enclosures

CC:     Laura Spector-Morgan, Esq.

            James Gerry, Director, Municipal and Property Division, DRA

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^[1] See attached website document  “Town Response to Questions Posed During September 16 Assessing Input Session”

^[2] An unknowing buyer will pay less for a property that is over-assessed due to the fact that the property taxes are higher than they should be. When a revaluation occurs and taxes decline, a windfall accrues to the buyer because the property value will increase a correlated amount. In this case, the seller will incur the loss. If a property that is under-assessed is sold, it presumably will sell for more than it would have if it had been fairly assessed. Here, the seller is the winner and the buyer the loser.

At this Monday’s Selectboard meeting, Town Manager Julia Griffin will provide an update on the status of the recruitment for a new Assessing Director as well as the proposals received by the Town for both a full measure and list revaluation in 2021 and a potential third party review of the statistical update conducted in 2018.

On a separate note, contrary to reports that Dave McMullen retired, it has been confirmed that McMullen is now the new assessor in Conway, NH.

Dave McMullen, the assessor responsible for the 2018 revaluation, is no longer employed by the town of Hanover. The circumstances surrounding McMullen’s departure are currently unknown.

Please take a few moments to read the petition signed by over 50 of your Hanover, New Hampshire neighbors. The petition is in PDF form to preserve formatting and data that is valuable to understand the context behind this issue.

Please take a look at the Petition and additional data attachments

Want to find out more about the petition from Hanover, New Hampshire property owners to the Board of Tax and Land Appeals? This is the place is the look. We will share any information we have.