No Oversight, No Accountability In The Land Of Assessing

By Jenny Burke

So you’ve checked your property record card and found “mistakes.”

These mistakes just happen to INCREASE your valuation and your tax bill has gone up, up and away. Then, let’s say you get curious and check more property record cards in town – like those of your assessors, for example. What do you find? Maybe you find that the assessors’ homes are being assessed, not at their fair market value, but rather at a fraction of their fair market value. If you dig deeper you may also find that Select Board members are getting a tax “break” right along with friends and relatives of the assessors. Like a good citizen, you accumulate your evidence, and lo and behold, discover that this type of tax fraud and/or racketeering has been going on for years. Now, what do you do? Outraged that you’ve been paying more than your fair share while the assessors’ flagrantly break laws, you want justice. Where can you find it?

Well, if you happen to live in an assessor fiefdom, you may find truth, justice and the American way has met an untimely death. What is an assessor fiefdom? It is a town or city, (maybe yours), where the assessors have little training, less integrity and TOTAL POWER to place valuations on homes based on nothing other than their whim. You, on the other hand, thanks to a rigged legal system, must shoulder complete responsibility and cost for their “mistakes.” The assessors face no consequences for over or under valuation, falsified property record cards, and are free to assess the opulent properties of their friends, neighbors and relatives as if they are mobile homes in trailer parks.

These are dark days for homeowners in the land of assessing. While more people are becoming aware that the property tax system is unfair and complicated, they are finding that the state agencies find it just as complicated. That means, apart from the Department of Revenue, no other state agency has a grasp of the complex assessing rules and regulations. So where do you turn if you are a law-abiding citizen and uncover an assessor breaking the law?

At PropertyTaxRights.com we receive questions and complaints nationwide about over-assessment, assessors under-assessing their own properties, and outright fraud committed by assessors unfairly raising valuations on unsuspecting targeted families. Many of the violations reported may be actual crimes that should be investigated by overseeing state agencies. The problem is, which state agency? From the information we have collected, it appears that a vacuum has been created, and it appears that no state agency has the power or the training to properly investigate and prosecute law- breaking assessors.

We began our queries in Massachussetts where we asked the Department of Revenue which agency specifically has charge over assessors who break the law. The DOR was prompt and informative in its response. Much to our surprise we were told that the DOR does not consider itself an investigative agency.

“You also asked which agency is responsible for conducting an investigation if an elected assessor violates a Massachusetts general law.  DLS is not an investigative agency when it comes to local operations and procedures. We do not have jurisdiction to act on complaints of misconduct or to investigate allegations of misconduct by local officials generally….

…complaints about possible violations relating to the maintenance of public records are a matter for the Supervisor of Public Records, who is responsible for administering that law.  Complaints about possible violations of the conflict of interest law are matters for the State Ethics Commission or municipal counsel to rule on.  Public bidding and procurement issues are matters for the Inspector General.  To the extent any alleged acts might constitute crimes, they would be matters for the District Attorney, or in some cases, the Attorney General.”

Bureau of Municipal Finance Law 
Division of Local Services 
Massachusetts Department of Revenue

We then queried the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and asked them if they are an overseeing agency and can investigate assessors who break the law. After several weeks of e-mail exchanges with Harry Pierre, Deputy Press Secretary, Attorney General’s Boston office, Attorney Quintilian received a phone call from Pierre. He stated, “Regarding this issue, I will not put anything in writing.”

A Massachusetts property owner who reported assessor MGL violations to the Attorney General’s office was told that they were “unable” to assist her. When Senator Ben Downing’s office contacted the Attorney General’s office about assessor oversight they informed him that they “do not have jurisdiction in this issue.” Meanwhile a local Attorney General’s official said that the Attorney General’s office has taken the position that this lies within the DOR’s purview and he was instructed to pass complaints along to the DOR!

Is your head spinning yet? On your way to report assessor crimes to a state agency make sure you first stop at the drugstore and buy motion sickness tablets. Apparently you will need them when state agencies send you from one to another with dizzying speed.

The Ethics Commission reported over 82 complaints were received against assessors since 2005. As far as we could determine, none appear to have been charged with any major ethics violations. Ethics also implied through a recent inquiry that they rely on the DOR to tell them if the complaints are indeed valid or not. It is possible, if not likely, that they may have been told by the DOR that many of these 82 complaints should not be pursued.

We also interviewed several complainants who, in the recent past, approached the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office. Although the DA’s office did move ahead with an investigation, the investigation appears to have met a brick wall when the DOR allegedly refused to confirm that the assessors violated the law. The complainants were sorely disappointed with the result of their time and effort. One complainant reported that a hostile investigator refused to interview her though she had the most complete and well-documented criminal evidence against the assessors. Another complainant described a frustrating conversation with an Assistant District Attorney who sat firmly on the side of the assessors. Ultimately, all the complaints were dismissed out of hand and the investigator explained to one complainant that the Department of Revenue said that the assessors committed no crimes.

A homeowner who has recently battled an unreasonable overassessment suggests that the DOR routinely undermines investigations. “If the DOR says there is nothing wrong with what the assessors are doing, then the AG’s office, Ethics and the DA are not going to question that. They don’t know enough about the property tax system, nor are they going to bother to learn. They will defer to the DOR.,” he explains. “The Appellate Tax Board is only interested in value, and they have no authority over law breaking assessors, nor do they care. The way things are now, assessors can break any law any time and face no consequences. They can overassess or underassess and never pay a penalty. Homeowners, on the other hand, are at great risk and must shoulder all the costs of fighting an overassessment. We have no protection. ”

So what has happened to truth, justice and the American Way? Can it be restored to the fiefdoms where assessors are King? Or will assessors continue to reign supreme accountable to no one?

National expert on property taxes, Attorney Quintilian says, “Property owners everywhere can speak up and challenge this system. If they follow the legal process, file for abatements, file appeals, sign the petition on propertytaxrights.com and spread the word to other homeowners, they can become a force for change. Homeowners who are sick and tired of this corrupt system can contact their legislators and tell them that they demand immediate property tax reform and accountability for all assessors.”

In other words, it is time for the King to be dethroned.

PropertyTaxRights.com