May 10th 2011
Berkeley Township Taxpayers Coalition
P.O. Box 389
Berkeley Township
New Jersey, 08721
Ocean County Board of Taxation, Rm. #215
118 Washington St. PO Box 2191
Toms River NJ 08753
Att: Lawrence Vituscka, Tax Administrator
Re: Martin Appraisal Inc., Revaluation Report
Dear Mr. Vituscka,
As you are aware the Berkeley Township Town Council retained the services of Martin Appraisal Associates at considerable cost to review the 2010 Revaluation, conducted by Certified Valuations, Inc.
This review was so ordered due to the outcry of the Town’s property owners who felt that the entire Revaluation was incorrect, and demanded that a review be conducted by a qualified firm. In addition to that review, the Town Council has also retained the Law Firm of Dilworth Paxson of Philadelphia, PA., with a local office In Neptune NJ, to review five alleged violations of the contract between Certified Valuations, Inc., and Berkeley Township.
The purpose of this letter is to respectfully request that your office review the2010 Revaluation report compiled by Martin Appraisal Associates that was sent to you by the Berkeley Township Town Council.
The following are only a few of Martin Appraisal Associates recommendations, they can be found on Pages 33 and 34. Although we have summarized each of the report Points, we ask that your office review the entire report in its totality. They are:
Point #2: Found in some cases the Land Value Formulas appear to have been
manipulated to achieve a pre-determined result.
Point #3: Found in some neighborhoods there were disparities with respect to
ratios and coefficients.
Point #4: Recommend a Compliance Plan be initiated where the Tax Assessor
performs yearly maintenance evaluations to keep assessments in line with
changing market conditions.
We also ask that you review Pages 8/9 and 31 under the Caption of“Research andFindings”, also Pages 31thru 34 titled “Conclusions”
An overview of Martin Appraisal's Report indicates there were significant
inaccuracies in approximately a dozen communities, it clearly points to properties and models of homes that were either over or under valued, and recommends properties in those communities be revalued.
While Martin’s Appraisal report shows over assessments occurred in both waterfront
and retirement communities, there are individuals who believe that over assessed properties in waterfront communities should now remain as is, since they have been“supposedly” under assessed for years, while others believe that properties under assessed throughout the retirement communities should also remain as is, since they believe the retirement communities have been over assessed for years.
To those individuals I say, if those incorrect assessments did exist, we should not try to correct injustices of the past with yet another injustice.
In closing, again, we respectfully request that you review the entire Martin Appraisal report of the 2010 revaluation that was conducted by Certified Valuations, Inc., and so order that thoserecommendations be implemented by the Berkeley Township tax assessor as soon as possible.The property owners of Berkeley Township have suffered financially long enough, and now want this debacle to end, and with your help we are confident it will.
The Board members of the Berkeley Township Taxpayers Coalition represent and are the voice of the over taxed property owners. As our obligation is to keep our membership informed on how things are proceeding in this matter, we will post this letter on our website along with all accompanying documentation. There you will also find our letter and documentation outlining the five alleged violations in the contract between Certified Valuations, Inc. and Berkeley Township that was sent to Mr. John Bennett Esq. of Dilworth Paxson Law Firm.
We respectfully request a response to this letter within the next 10 business days as to your plans to hopefully implement the recommendations found in Martin Appraisals, Inc. report, so we might inform our membership of your decision.
Yours Truly,
Joseph Semiraro
Vice President
Berkeley Township Taxpayers Coalition
We are enclosing the following documentation:
The April 28th,2011 letter sent by the Berkeley Township Town Council to your attention regarding the Martin Appraisals, Inc Revaluation report.
The Resolution of the Berkeley Township Council awarding the review of the 2010 Revaluation that was conducted by Certified Valuation, Inc.
CC: Berkeley Township Town Council
Mayor Jason Varano
Cheryl Fulmer, Deputy Director, NJ Dept of the Treasury