What is the Revaluation Process?  Cyclical revaluation is a measure and list of all municipal properties within a three to five-year time period. Property assessments will be updated during the last year of measuring and listing property data, including the verification of all municipal market sales. This is the fastest growing revaluation work in New Hampshire and IS considered a Full revaluation once the entire process is complete.

Why do we do the Revaluation Process?  Besides the constitutional and statutory requirements, there are many beneficial aspects to
completing a revaluation. The nature of the value of real estate is that values change, and the reality is it rarely changes for every property type at the same rate or for the same reasons. Basic fairness in property taxation requires that everyone pays based on the value of their property, and the revaluation resets all property to market value. Also, this being a human activity, it is prone to errors. A revaluation provides the opportunity to correct these errors. There may also be valuable property that has not been included, either through omission from inventory forms, or the completion of non-permitted work. The collection of these additional features of property increases
the accuracy of the total value of a municipality and will reduce the tax burden on all taxpayers and abatement requests.

How does a revaluation affect property taxes?  A common misconception among property owners is that after a revaluation is that their increased tax assessment value will automatically result in increased property taxes.  This is simply not true. Property taxes are determined proportionally. As long as the entire community saw values rise by the same proportion, then each property still has the same proportion of value relative to every other piece of property in the municipality.

For example, a town has a budget of $10,000 and two properties in town. Each of the two properties pay $5,000 in property tax based on a $250,000 assessed value of each property.

After the 5-year revaluation, both properties are now assessed at $275,000. The town still has a budget of $10,000. The town budget does not increase merely because the value of the properties in town increased. The town still needs to raise $10,000, as such, the town would still raise $5,000 from each property.

Please do not apply the current tax rate to your new assessment as it will not be correct. Once the new rate is set, we will make it available to you.

Information provided to you was taken from New Hampshire Dept. of Revenue and NH Municipal.