Medford Sun

By AUBRIE GEORGE | The Medford Sun
Medford is gearing up to begin a township-wide tax revaluation that will bring all properties within the township up to 100 percent true market value and will spread the tax burden evenly.
Township Tax Assessor Gil Gobile said bids from revaluation companies interested in carrying out the project are due to the township on Jan. 28.  When those bids are received, township officials will review each revaluation company’s proposal and will hire a particular company to carry out the revaluation.
The selected revaluation company will work in concert with Gobile’s office in order to inform the public about the process through a series of press releases as well as information in the Medford Messenger.  Gobile and representatives from the revaluation company will also be available to community groups for questions and information.
Until a company is hired, Gobile said it is difficult to layout a specific timeline for the revaluation process.  However, he said, the date that values for each property will be determined is Oct. 1, in order to go on the tax books for Jan. 1, 2011.
“We look at, as of Oct. 1, what are the values doing at that time,” Gobile said. “At that point we put a value on the property and that’s what will go on the tax list for Jan. 1, 2011.”
In general, every taxpayer will receive a general letter from the revaluation company that is selected.  In those letters, the company will introduce itself, tell residents what it has been hired to do and outline how it will proceed with the revaluation process, Gobile said.
Residents will receive a second letter one week before a field representative from the company is scheduled to come to their particular neighborhood.
“One week in advance, each neighborhood will receive notices that someone from the revaluation company will be coming out to measure and inspect their property – not the ground, their house,” Gobile said.
After that notification, there are non-individual appointments made in which the field inspector will systematically measure and inspect every property in a particular neighborhood.
Gobile said inspectors would go to each house and present an I.D. badge as well as an introductory letter from someone in the township. He said it has not yet been determined which township official will write that letter.
“They’ll present that to the homeowner, they’ll measure the outside of the house and, if the property owner allows permission to inspect the inside of the house, they will do that,” Gobile said.
At that point, if the taxpayer does not grant entry into their home, the field inspector must come back on an evening or on a Saturday.
If the field inspector comes back and still does not get in touch with the taxpayer, they have to make a third attempt, which is done by appointment, Gobile said.
“There are three attempts to look at the inside of the house,” Gobile said. “That third attempt is by appointment.”
Gobile said it is important for the field inspector to see the inside of each property in order to make an accurate evaluation. 
“Would you buy a house without seeing the inside of it? It’s very difficult to value a property without seeing the condition of the inside of the property,” he said.
Field inspectors will move systematically through the township, inspecting homes neighborhood by neighborhood. Gobile said every property that has any type of building on it is going to be measured and inspected during the revaluation.
Once all properties are inspected, the revaluation company will look at the values of the sales going on in the township as of Oct. 1, 2010, as well as a year prior to see what sales have been like, Gobile said.
“They’ll come up with a value for each individual property based on the sales that have occurred in Medford Township,” Gobile said.
Residents will receive a letter of notification as to what their new property value is around mid-November.
The letter, he said, will tell residents what their new value is and also will include information on how to make an appointment for an informal review to discuss the new value.
“They (the taxpayer) can come in and sit with a representative from the revaluation company and find out how the value was determined. They can tell the revaluation company what their opinion of the value is and supply them with any evidence as to what they believe the market value to be,” Gobile said.
After an informal review, the revaluation project manager will make a determination and will inform the taxpayer that there will be a change in their property value based on the evidence submitted, or, that there will be no change. All of the determined property values within the township will go on the tax books on Jan. 1, 2011. 
After the book is filed with the county, which Gobile said is done every year, each taxpayer who still does not agree with their value has the right to appeal to the Burlington County Board of Taxation by April 1, 2011.