Updated september 2024
Connecticut Real Estate Tax Update: 2024 Municipal Revaluations in Connecticut – Is Your Town Among Them?
It is always important to carefully review your tax bill and/or notices of assessments, but even more so in the year in which your city or town conducts a revaluation.
Each assessment should be carefully reviewed, even if your assessment has not increased substantially, as an appeal immediately after a revaluation maximizes a property owner's potential tax savings.
Connecticut law requires that each municipality conduct a general revaluation of the real estate within its borders at least once every five years. Given the passage of Connecticut Public Act 22-74, the State's Revaluation Schedule has shifted slightly with the creation of five new Revaluation Zones which purportedly allows for the coordination of revaluation services and provides a mechanism to create efficiency and municipal cost savings. This new law does not change the fact that municipalities must conduct revaluations in Connecticut every five years, however, the result is that some municipal revaluations are a year shorter or longer to transition into the new schedule.
The purpose of a revaluation is for a municipality to determine the market value of real estate to be used to calculate property taxes.
Once a property's value is set in a general revaluation, it remains constant over the entire five-year cycle, absent appeal, demolition, improvements or expansion. Of course, the annual taxes usually increase, as a municipality's mill rate increases incrementally from year to year. Municipalities across the State are on differing revaluation cycles.
The following is a list of Connecticut municipalities conducting revaluations this year:
Bloomfield
Branford
Brooklyn
Canterbury
Coventry
Hamden
Mansfield
Monroe
New Fairfield
North Branford
North Haven
Old Lyme
Oxford
Pomfret
Prospect
Putnam
Seymour
Thompson
Tolland
Torrington
Voluntown
Wallingford
West Haven
Windsor Locks*
Woodbridge
*One-year delay as Revaluation was originally scheduled for 10/1/2023
If your municipality is conducting a general revaluation for the October 1, 2024 Grand List you will receive a notice of tax assessment change soon.
Once the notices are issued, there may be a chance to meet informally with the assessor to discuss the new assessment, which should represent 70% of the fair market value of your real estate. However, if a property owner wishes to challenge the assessment formally, a written appeal must be filed with the local Board of Assessment Appeals by the February 20, 2025 statutory deadline.
It is in your best interest to be proactive in monitoring the revaluation process and your new assessment so that you can take all necessary steps to ensure that the assessment is equitable.
Nicholas W. Vitti Jr. and Joseph D. Szerejko
Murtha Cullina LLP
American Property Tax Counsel (APTC)