72 Misc. 2d 901 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1973
The petitioners, individual and corporate, seek an order directing the taking of testimony hearing on the alleged illegality of assessment procedures used by the respondents in making up the 1972 general assessment roll of the Town of Fallsburgh, and, further, a declaration that said assessment procedures and resultant tax roll are unconstitutional, illegal and void. The respondents oppose the motion
An assessment review proceeding furbishes an adequate remedy for a dissatisfied taxpayer and confines him to its employ
The assigned errors or illegalities enumerated above as Nos. (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) and (9) can be disposed of summarily. "While I am satisfied that the assessment roll of the Town of Fallsburgh was certified and filed as required by law, it should be noted that late filing does not vitiate either the roll or the tax levied thereunder (Matter of Bablo v. Andrews, 4 Misc 2d 105). The qualification, or lack thereof of the Town Assessor as charged by petitioners, is irrelevant, particularly since the recitation of the assessor’s background in real property matters more than satisfies the requirements set forth in section 1522 of the Real Property Tax Law. The contention that inadequate provisions for hearing individual grievances were provided, that changes were made in the tax rolls after July 15, 1972 and that some veterans’ exemptions were changed are all without merit and totally inadequate to justify the relief requested in the absence of any evidentiary supportable allegations of a quality sufficient to support the burden of proving misconduct and, further, such charges, if sustained, affect individual taxpayers for whom the law provides an adequate remedy. They are not errors or illegalities that would undermine the entire assessment program and open it to collateral attack. The charge that individual board members were motivated by notions of personal profit or gain is a reckless charge, not evidentially supported in the accompanying papers and baseless as a reason for maintaining an article 78 certiorari proceeding.
The most serious allegation of respondents’ misconduct is that the assessor adopted a multiphased program of assessment and in furtherance of that program only assessed vacant land in compiling the 1972 tax roll, all in derogation of section 306 of the Real Property Tax Law which states: “ All real property in
The charges that the assessor used an outdated tax map and that he did not personally view each parcel assessed are without merit. The petitioners do not identify the map used or the availability or lack thereof of any other map. Individualized, personal viewing of each parcel is not required by the Beal Property Tax Law. In fact, the assessor may acquire the information he needs from inspection, observation, hearsay, inquiry and from the opinions of others. It is the totality of his information that is germane, not merely what he saw by reason of a personal visit (People v. Brundage, 195 App. Div. 745).
Finally, the contention of petitioners that the assesor arbitrarily set a figure of $800 per acre as the market value of all land in the township and failed to take into consideration such factors as easements, road frontage, availability of water and location is meritless as justification for collaterally attacking the entire assessment roll in the absence of any supportable allegation that the $800 per acre assessment does not represent a uniform percentage of full value. The Town Assessor insists that $800 per acre accurately reflects land values in Fallsburgh based on all
In sum, it can be said that assessing methods are subject to collateral attack when those methods strip the taxing authorities of their jurisdictional right to tax. Where they do not, the mere allegation, unsupported by evidentiary matter, that the attack is on the methods employed rather than individual evaluations, is not enough to relieve the complainants of the obligation to pursue their relief via the provisions of article 7 of the Real Property Tax Law. In my view, such is the case herein.
The petition is dismissed.
Presumably an article 78 certiorari review, although not identified as sucji in the moving papers.