Manchester Senior Communities A Focus for Tax Appraisers

Manchester leads Ocean County in the number of tax appeals filed for 2012 in part because residents in the many senior communities in town are seeking reassessments, according to the township's attorney.

Since the senior villages have "cookie-cutter homes," they become prime areas upon which appraisers look for clients, said township attorney Steven Secare last week when Manchester's met. Country Walk in Whiting, for example, has six home models.

"It's easier for the people on the other side to come in and say, 'we can do this, it's all the same stuff,'" he said.

The independent agents were able to come into the communities and hold seminars in meeting spaces there, reaching many residents at once. With many similar model homes in each community, completing appeals requires less work.

"It's so much easier to get a group together at a village," said Council President Craig Wallis. In other Manchester communities it becomes more difficult to get residents to band together for appeals because they all cannot be pitched at once as easily as is possible in a retirement community.

Independent firms were also able to offer discounts to those living in the communities, Secare said. After an upfront fee to prepare the appeal paperwork, residents could expect a savings on their property tax bill.

Since Manchester has the largest senior population per capita in the state and many of those residents live on fixed incomes, the prospect of saving money through a tax appeal becomes an attractive deal.

"People just signed up because of that," Secare said. "The people jump on it."

Tax assessor Martin Lynch said that, once all are counted, the township expects "close to 2,000" tax appeals for 2012. In 2011, 785 appeals were filed, Lynch said.

It is still to early to offer a monetary estimate what the drop in rateables will be for 2012, Lynch said, though he did note that "it's going to be significant."

In 2011, the township's ratables base dropped $115 million after five senior community cooperatives won tax appeals. 

There have been more appeals in Manchester in 2012 than any other time, with the exception of the economic downturn in the 1990s, said Secare, who has worked in the township for about 20 years. 

Senior villages were "hit harder" with the recent economic downturn, Wallis said.

"In the senior communities, the prices have dropped more than even in the areas with single family homes," he said.

To combat the number of appeals, the council plans to be on a schedule that will be "much tighter," Wallis said. A is planned to be completed within five years, as 20 percent of properties are expected to be reassessed for the 2013 tax cycle.