Town Wide Property Reassessment Coming To Amherst

Property owners in Buffalo's largest suburb have had a rough time lately. It was just a few weeks ago that homeowners were up in arms about a double-digit tax increase they were being hit with. Now, residents are even more upset because the property values that the town uses to determine how much tax people owe each year may change real soon.

Normally, a tax reassessment happens every few years, but this time around, the air is more politically charged than it's been in a long time.

Town of Amherst Is Planning To Reassess Property Tax Values

Town residents are starting to receive notices that their property values may have changed. Those value changes, coupled with a double-digit tax rate increase, could mean a surprise in people's school tax bills when they start to arrive later this year and their property tax bills when they come at the end of the year.

According to the Buffalo News, the more than 44,000 property owners in Amherst and Clarence shouldn't expect to see a huge increase in taxes since all the reassessment does is rebalance how the tax burden is distributed.

However, as residents of Buffalo learned a few years ago, when values aren't routinely updated areas of town can be subject to large tax increases. This is due to the fact that home prices all over the region have exploded over the last few years. The last reassessment that took place across the entire town happened in 2017, and a lot has changed in Western New York over the last seven years.

Amherst Residents Aren't The Only Ones Dealing With This

Amherst isn't the only place going through a reassessment; the City of Buffalo's Department of Assessment and Taxation is also in the process of doing the exact same thing.

If you have questions about reassessments, New York State produces a handy guide for property owners to understand assessments. You can check that out here.