It’s property tax appeal season in Vermont—property tax grievance hearings typically occur between Mid-May and early June. If your property has been re-assessed, you will receive a notice in the mail informing you of the new valuation and providing you with the deadlines for filing an appeal. However, even if your property was not reassessed this year, you can still appeal the valuation–you just can’t appeal the value for any earlier tax years. Keep in mind that if your property hasn’t been reassessed, you will not receive a notice from the town informing you of your appeal rights and relevant deadlines—you will need to determine those on your own.
Vermont’s procedures for determining the relevant property appeals deadlines are somewhat byzantine. In short, the deadlines are determined by the individual municipalities within the boundaries set by state statutes. Property tax appeal deadlines should be considered hard deadlines. If you miss the appeal deadline you generally need to wait until the next year.
By statute, the last possible date to commence grievance hearings with the town listers is generally June 19 for smaller towns and July 9 for towns with a population of 5,000 and above. Again, the actual deadlines are determined by the town and will generally be earlier than these two dates. The deadline to file the grievance is the “grievance meeting” date established by the town for a given year. Property owners must consult the deadline stated on the reassessment notice sent by the town. If no notice is sent, property owners will need to do a little research–the listers are required to post the grievance meeting date in the grand list “book”, which are available for public inspection in the town offices. Property owners may also confirm the dates with the relevant town listers and/or their tax advisors.
The Vermont Secretary of State’s office has published a helpful property tax appeal handbook here.
