YEARLY ASSESSMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 21006, 21 January 1932, Page 12

YEARLY ASSESSMENTS

METHODS OF OBJECTION ADVICE TO RATEPAYERS In the matter of the yearly assessments of the city, as compiled in terms of the Rating Act, steps have been taken to alter a rather undesirable practice that has grown up of late years. It is obligatory on the part of the council to notify the valuation list as open for inspection. For convenience the place of deposit of the list has been in the office of the city valuer, and that fact has led to ratepayers calling at the city valuer’s office and discussing with that official their particular assessment., In some cases—such, for instance, where rents had been reduced subsequent to the date of investigation by the valuer—amendments wore made in the assessment in line with the later information. That practice has been the cause of considerable objection, and it is with a view to the elimination of such objection that the old practice is being amended.

In theory at least the scheme of the Act removes the matter of review of any assessment from the city valuer after the statutory date—January 15 —when he is required to send the list to the local authority, except in those cases where a formal objection as prescribed by the Act is first lodged. Upon receipt of these formal objections by the City Council they will be forwarded to the city valuer and thus enable him, in the light of any new information therein set out, to review his assessment. If, upon such review, he is prepared either to amend his figures or to justify them, the objector will bo so informed by letter, leaving tJlc objector the choice of accepting the verdict or, alternatively, of appealing to the Assessment Court.

Undqr this method of procedure, which is on all fours with the practice of the Valuation Department of the State in respect of the Government valuations, there should be no occasion to personally approach the city valuer for a reconsideration of any assessment after the prescribed date for the compilation of the list, which, as alreadystated, is January J 5 in each year. Forms of objection can be obtained at the Town Hall.