IN THE NEWS:
To best understand the substantial property-tax breaks granted condominium owners in New York, consider two homes in downtown Scarsdale, both worth about $1 million.
Software
engineer Bruce Wells owns a single-family home on a quarter-acre at 40 Chase Road with a full-market value of $971,401, village records show. He pays close to $21,000 a year in county, village and school taxes.
A block away, John and Marjorie Beyersdorf own a two-bedroom condominium at 1 Christie Place that they bought in 2009 for $1.3 million. But the condo’s “full market value” on which taxes are levied is just $362,372. The Beyersdorfs’ 2012 tax bill came to about $7,600 — about one-third of what Wells paid.
“I don’t mind them paying a little less at Christie Place because you have to be over 55 to live there, and they don’t have kids for the schools,” Wells said. “But paying one-third of what I pay is beyond the pale.”
The discrepancy between what Wells and the Beyersdorfs pay in taxes sheds light on one of the state’s biggest property-tax breaks — one available in 29 of the Lower Hudson Valley’s 36 cities and towns, a Tax Watch analysis by The Journal News found. As a result, condo assessments in those communities are anywhere from 25 percent to 70 percent of the properties’ actual market value.
As the debate over the fairest method of taxation continues, two more municipalities, Mamaroneck and Scarsdale, are considering changing their rules to level the playing field between condos and single-family homes.
Condos’ popularity
The tax break is well known to condo owners, and to builders who have found a growing market for such units in an area where homeowners increasingly are squeezed by high property taxes.
Condo owners have title to their units, owning the interiors of their apartments and a fraction of the development’s land and common areas. Unlike co-operative apartments, in which owners buy shares
in a corporation, condo owners get a deed to their property and are taxed individually by municipalities.
SOURCE: LOHUD.COM