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2016 Property Assessment Pre-roll, Nova Scotia

On 14th October the Property Valuation Services Corporation (PVSC) published its proposed Year 2016 assessments for Nova Scotia (with the exception of apartments).  If your property is enrolled in our PAMS® Property Tax Manager program we are reviewing the assessment and will do our best to engage PVSC in negotiations to mitigate the increase.  Unfortunately PVSC’s customary tardiness may limit this opportunity:  the official Assessment Roll will be finalised on 1st December.  (If your property is not yet PAMS® protected you can check what PVSC has in store by accessing their web site www.pvsc.ca.)

The practice of publishing an Assessment Pre-roll began in 2000 as a well-intentioned initiative by the then Minister of Municipal Affairs to bring some stability to municipal budgets.  It followed a meeting between the Minister, Deputy Minister, our company president and senior members of our Property Tax Division.  At that time the Department of Municipal Affairs was responsible for calculating assessed values and the Minister reasoned that publishing a Pre-roll would give property owners the opportunity to informally challenge incorrect assessments, which could then be rectified before the official roll (on which municipal budgets were based) was published in January.  The “Pre-roll” was to be published in June, six months prior to the publication of the official Assessment Roll.  It was an idea of such startling common sense that we thought it unlikely to prevail.  But it did!  True to her word, the Minister implemented a policy of publishing the Pre-roll mid-year to provide ample time for negotiations.  The policy survived subsequent Ministers until the job of determining assessments was passed to PVSC, a “not for profit” corporation (paid for by property owners) created for that very purpose in April 2007 … but sadly no longer answerable to the Minister.  Despite the fact that PVSC inherited the Minister’s assessment staff the “Pre-roll” was an early casualty.  At first “transitional” computer cockups bore the brunt of the blame but as the years rolled by excuses were no longer deemed necessary as PVSC struggled to issue its Pre-roll at the eleventh hour.  Today we raise our eyes to the heavens and offer silent thanks if and when the Pre-roll materialises … or as is the case this year, a partial Pre-roll.  Still half a loaf is better than none at all even if it comes at a cost to taxpayers of $17 million annually.  (To be fair PVSC is the only assessment authority in Atlantic Canada that publishes a Pre-roll).

So, if your property is not yet in the PAMS® fold, how do you determine whether your commercial property is overassessed?  The basis for your 2016 Realty Assessment, as mandated by the provincial Assessment Act, is the market value of your property on 1st January 2014 (the “base date”), having regard to its physical state on 1st December 2015 (the “state date”) and the assessments of other commercial properties in the municipality (the “General Level of Assessment”).  Market value then is the first test:  if your realty assessment exceeds your property’s market value on 1st January 2014, it is over-assessed and you should so remonstrate with the assessor (or ask us to do it for you). 

The second test to apply is the General Level of Assessment (“GLA”), calculated by dividing the sum of the 2016 assessments of those properties that sold between 1st July 2013 and 30th June 2014, by the aggregate of their sale prices.  When PVSC divulge their General Level of Assessment they invariably claim it to be between 97% to 100%. Discerning readers will readily realise that 100% can be achieved if half the properties in the municipality are over-assessed by 50%, so long as the other half are under-assessed by 50% … so a property may be assessed at double its twin and still meet this test!  No matter, on the one occasion in which we were afforded the opportunity to review PVSC’s calculations, they proved to be a nonsense:  a point on which the court concurred.  A more realistic GLA for commercial property is 80% to 90%.

The Bottom Line:  If you do not challenge your assessment now you will have to wait until the Appeal Period in January 2016.

Action Required:  If you are in any doubt as to whether your property is over-assessed contact a member of our Nova Scotia tax team, Giselle Kakamousias, Greg Kerry or Mark Turner at 1-800-567-3033 (902-429-1811 in HRM).  They may not be able to help; but by golly, they are nice people.

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