Failure to Personally Serve Petitions for Tax Assessment Reductions as Required by the Real Property Tax Law Mandated Dismissal of the Petitions

The Third Department determined the petitions seeking a reduction in tax assessments should have been dismissed because they were served by certified mail.  The controlling statute, Real Property Tax Law (RPTL) 708 (1) requires personal service.  Service by certified mail was not a technical defect which could be overlooked:

RPTL 708 (1) required petitioners to personally serve the designated assessment officer, which they admittedly failed to do, and — as this Court previously has observed — “the statute. . . does not permit service by certified mail” … . Further, the case law makes clear that “CPLR 2001 may be used to cure only a technical infirmity” … , and the Court of Appeals has cautioned that “simply mailing the [relevant pleadings] to [a] defendant . . . would present more than a technical infirmity, even if [the] defendant actually receives the [pleadings], inasmuch as [mailing] in general introduce[s a] greater possibility of failed delivery” … . In this regard, we reject petitioners’ assertion that, because the relevant pleadings were served via certified mail, as opposed to first class mail, the admitted service defect may be said to fall within the realm of a technical infirmity. Simply put, inasmuch as petitioners’ service was defective, Supreme Court should have granted respondents’ motions to dismiss the petitions. Matter of Karl v Martin, 2015 NY Slip Op 02824, 3rd Dept 4-2-15