You pay taxes on the assessed value of the home. Forget about 1 or 2 familes. Our assessment is at 28%, which means it is time for another reval. When the last reval happened the city was on a calendar year, not a fiscal year. My taxes jumped from $3,000 to $16,000. It the city was on a fiscal it would have been $11,000. I have attended county meetings Jersey City is paying more proportionally due to the sales prices fuled by tax abated properties. Tax abated properties are not ratables. Ratables add to the value of the city and lessen the burden for all of us. Abatements are contracts in which the city keeps the money but the value of the sale is held against the homeowner. Property that is selling at market rate is used when the county strikes the budget. Our taxes goes up to make up for the low assessment (28%). On top of that we are losing state aid for the board of ed due to the wealth of the city. In the last two years we paid an addition $10.8 million to the board of ed which is more than a $2.00 increase. Additional information is on my web site www.speaknj.com

I just received a notice from the Jersey City Office of the Tax Assessor. It says please call the office of Tax Assessment to arrange for an appointment to have your property inspected.

What does this mean? Is this routine, or am I being reassessed?

My house was a legal three family, when NJ state DCA came to inspect a few months ago, I classified it as a two family, which is how it is being used. Could this have triggered a tax reassesment by Jersey City?

Robin.

Thanks - I hadn't thought of yet another reassessment. When we bought this 2F it had just been converted into one, and we pay almost double in property tax than the same house next door - which is a 1 family being used as a two family. If I'm losing the income I was hoping to lower the taxes.

I agree with all of the above posts. We were looking to do the same thing and discovered that there was a possibility of reassesment which could mean a hike in our taxes. Besides, if you should decide to sell, your property might be worth more if it carried a two family status.

Step away from the phone, immediately. One familes can be worth more than two families and your taxes could go up. Also, once you reregister as a one you could have trouble converting back to a two.

There was extensive reporting a few years back about a similar trend in Brooklyn. I didn't pay attention to the details or logic (if such a thing can be logical), but the conversion to single family was raising tax rates. To something like triple what they had been.
Anything that might cause your home to be revalued could be risky as well.
Best check it out with a real estate lawyer or some other professional who really knows before going to the city.
Just in case.

If you have a 2 family house that is being used as a 1 family, what tax rate do you pay? I know you pay more for a 2 family, but does it revert back to the 1 family tax rate if the property is used as a 1 family? If so, how do you go about getting the tax rate changed?

Thanks! I will call city hall too, but thought you might be able to give me some info here.