[onetwo_threefour]

To those who recently bought new homes, here is how it is supposed to work...

If you buy between January and June, your builder will likely credit you for the part of the year that they own the property, based on last year's taxes (and partially complete value), and then you pay the full amount when the City issues the assessment, but you paid a little less for your house as a result. Then, some time later, the City will issue a Supplemental Assessment, for the difference between last year's partially complete value and the fully completed value. The Supplemental Assessment is generally isseued for only the part of the year that you own the property, (e.g. if you buy at the end of April the taxes will be pro-rated so you're paying taxes on the increase in value only for eight months - May to December)

If you buy between July and December, then the builder has usually paid the taxes in full for the year (based on partially complete value) and you won't pay any taxes until the city issues the Supplemental Assessment, at whcih point you should again be billed for only the part of the year that you owned the property.


These adjustments should be found on the Statement of Adjustments that your lawyer gives you at your rmeeting with him/her.

For used homes it gets a little trickier because of TIPPs, but the same concept fundamentally applies.