Lakefront, mobile home assessments face scrutiny

LEBANON - Lebanon selectmen are on a tight deadline trying to erase longtime disparities in assessments in many of the town's shoreline and mobile homes in advance of trying to set the tax rate next month.

Selectmen Chairman Ben Thompson, along with colleagues Royce Heath and Paul Nadeau are the three charged with calculating the assessments, many of which were formerly made using outdated and oversimplified formulas.

The two most troubling assessment areas, however, are with shorefront properties along Milton Three Ponds and mobile homes throughout town, Thompson said on Monday.

Over on Sewall Shores Drive many lots for many years have been assessed at a flat $42,000 rate, while others were assessed based on shoreline frontage at a much higher rate.

Selectmen want to assess all those properties equally based on shore frontage and then factoring in the overall size of the lot.

"You figure if you have owners not paying their fair share (of property tax) well, someone has to make up for that and that's other town residents," Thompson said.

He said to arrive at a proper shorefront house and lot assessment, selectmen will see how other like homes in town - either shoreline or not - are being appraised on the local market, and then factor in the shoreline property value based on a specific formula.

Thompson said there are many properties along Milton Three Ponds that are currently assessed at what appears to be half their value.

"I know there will be some grumbling, but we have to be fair," Thompson said, adding that state assessing officials had looked at and approved assessment methods the town is using.

Meanwhile, many of the town's mobile homes are ridiculously overassessed, he said, in some cases by as much as 200 percent.

He said many past assessments neither accounted for depreciation nor differentiated between modular homes and mobile homes, which depreciate faster.

Past residential assessments also often used cookie cutter formulas based on vague definitions like large cape, small cape, large ranch, small ranch, where square footage and other amenities weren't even considered.

"I think if we got all the assessments in order, you could see your mil rate (the amount of property tax charged by the town per thousand dollars of assessment) go down considerably, maybe to $13 or $14.

Last year's mil rate was $14.90, meaning a homeowner with a $200,000 assessed home would pay $2,980 in annual tax.

It's been estimated that this year's mil rate could jump to $16, meaning that same homeowner could pay about $3,200 this year, but Thompson is hopeful assessments in these next few weeks could bring that down a bit.

Thompson said they hope to have the tax bill ready to send out in mid-September.