Tax bills were mailed on Thursday, Sept. 12. Your bill reflects the most recent assessment of your property at the time of tax commitment.

If you have met with our assessing department to discuss errors and have made changes to your property card after Aug. 30 any changes in assessed value will be addressed through the abatement process. The tax payment due on Tuesday, Oct. 15 is still due in order to avoid a 1.5 percent annual interest charge.

If you have overpaid as a result of an error in assessment you will be credited the amount of overpayment on your March tax bill.

You can find a copy of your property card through our website, www.scarboroughmaine.org/departments/assessing, by stopping into the assessing office, or by calling the assessing department at 730-4060 and requesting that a copy be mailed to you.

If you believe that your tax assessment does not reflect your home’s “just value”, or market value, please call our assessing department, 730-4060, to let staff know about minor errors on the property card or to make an appointment with the assessor.

Any abatement application starts with a meeting with the assessor so the sooner you make an appointment, the sooner we can start working toward the most accurate assessment possible for your property.

All abatement requests must be filed with the Assessor within 185 days of tax commitment, which is March 6, 2020.

There are two further levels of recourse for property owners that are not granted an abatement by the assessor.

The first is to meet with the Board of Assessment Review. This five-member board that reviews appeals from decisions of the assessor regarding applications for abatements of property taxes and decides if the assessor or the property owner is correct about the proper assessment in accordance with the general laws of the state of Maine.

If a property owner is not satisfied with the Board of Assessment Review’s decision they may seek a final appeal to the Maine Superior Court.

For those property owners that are financially unable to pay their property taxes we do have a poverty abatement process. This process is private and ensures that any applicants are met with and discussed confidentially.

A poverty abatement is only granted to residents that truly cannot meet the financial obligation of their property tax. There is a thorough review of an applicant’s finances and all sources of income are examined.

If you believe that you are qualified to be considered for a poverty abatement please contact our general assistance coordinator at 450-5621.

We understand that the revaluation process has been stressful and challenging for many of you.

We are in the process of doing an internal review of the revaluation to see where we could have done better to ensure a smoother revaluation experience in the future.

The town council will hold a workshop on the revaluation on Wednesday, Oct. 2 during which we will share a statistical overview of the results of the revaluation and our lessons learned publicly.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the revaluation process or wish to share your concerns please call me, Larissa Crockett, assistant town manager at 730-4149 or email me at lcrockett@scarboroughmaine.org.

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