Reassessment of Improved Property Was Not an Unconstitutional Selective Assessment

Reversing Supreme Court, the Second Department determined the reassessment of petitioner’s property after the construction of improvements on the property was not an unconstitutional selective assessment:

Contrary to the determination of the Supreme Court, the petitioner failed to establish that there was an unconstitutional selective reassessment of the subject property. “It is well settled that a system of selective reassessment that has no rational basis in law violates the equal protection provisions of the Constitutions of the United States and the State of New York. Nevertheless, reassessment upon improvement is not illegal in and of itself . . . [n]or is the use of the purchase price or the current market value to reach a tax assessment in and of itself unconstitutional so long as the implicit policy is applied even-handedly to all similarly situated property” (Matter of Leone Props., LLC v Board of Assessors for Town of Cornwall, 81 AD3d 649, 650-651 [internal quotation marks omitted]). Here, the assessor testified at trial that whenever a new house is constructed on property, she visits the property and estimates the market value of the property, while considering comparable sales of improved property, land sales, and the construction costs of typical homes. The petitioner failed to submit any evidence demonstrating that the City assessed newly constructed property at a higher percentage of market value than existing property … . Matter of Carroll v Assessor of City of Rye NY, 2014 NY Slip Op 08837, 2nd Dept 12-17-14