Welcome to the Maplewood, NJ 2010 Property Tax Revaluation Blog

Welcome. The goal of this blog is to assist in the public information aspects of the upcoming property tax revaluation in Maplewood, NJ. I am Larry Seltzer, 127 Parker Ave, and I am a member of an Advisory Committee set up by the Township Committee to help guide the reval process. The reval will be conducted by Appraisal Systems.

Those of you who lived in Maplewood in 2000 for our last reval probably remember it and probably don't remember it fondly. Circumstances conspired to make it an unpleasant and contentious process. It had been almost 20 years since our last reval and the factors that make revaluations necessary had become aggravated such that many people saw large swings in their taxes, including some severe increases.

Many more residents saw decreases because a reval is a redistribution of tax burden with the goal of making it fairer by bringing assessments in line with true market value. All indications from the preliminary numbers are that we should not expect such changes this time. It's impossible to say that nobody will see a large increase or decrease, but smaller movements should be typical.

In future posts, soon we hope, we will explain more about why a reval is necessary and how it is performed. The short answer is that Maplewood is conducting a reval because we were ordered to by the Essex County Board of Taxation. But it's also 10 years since the last one and, rather than recreate the neglect that made the 2000 reval so problematic, we are working now so that the impact will be more reasonable.

Throughout the reval process you will also receive communications from Appraisal Systems. Before too long you will receive a letter from them introducing themselves and explaining what you should expect. You can expect much more information and much more communication from Appraisal Systems than you got in the 2000 reval. You will also have an opportunity to discuss your personal reval results, one-on-one, with a qualified representative of Appraisal Systems, before the data is finalized. Finally, Maplewood has many residents, including the members of this Advisory Committee, who will be watching the process closely and working to inform the public.