Board of Assessors

Minutes of the Board of Assessors Meeting of July 17, 2014 nd A meeting of the Board of Assessors was held on Thursday, July 17 2014 in Room 208, 2 floor of City Hall. The meeting was called to order at 8:15 AM by Chair Dominic D’Antoni. Members Present: Dominic D’Antoni Daniel Gagnon Assessing Staff Present: Andrew LeMay Louise Brown Gary Turgiss Greg Turgiss Doug Dame Minutes of the Meeting: The minutes for the meeting held on June 26, 2014 were tabled until the next meeting when both members in attendance are present. Abatement Requests Presented: A complete list of abatements presented is available in the Assessor’s Office. Appointments: 8:30 – Mr. Sathyamurthy K Pattanam and Mrs. Chithraleka of 12 Crestwood Lane regarding their 2013 proration application. The Board members and Assessing Department staff welcomed Mr. and Mrs. Pattanam and Chair Dominic D’Antoni advised that the members have received all the information they have submitted to the Assessing Department and will listen to what each side has to say today and take it under advisement. Within a week they will receive the Board’s decision. Mr. Pattanam began by saying they have been living in Nashua since July, 1990 and raised their family here. In May, 2013 on a Saturday afternoon around 4:30 PM they received a call from a friend saying there was smoke and fire coming from the house. When they got to the house, there were three or four fire trucks there along with Mayor Lozeau. She inspected the damage and passed her condolences to them and said if there is anything she can do to let her know. The fire went up through the roof and it was a total disaster. Since then their insurance company, State Farm, has been working with them on the claim. This was a 15-year old custom-built house and the builder is a long-time resident as well. The fire report indicates the cause is “undetermined-accidental in nature”. Since the fire, the house has gone through bad weather so there is a lot of water and snow damage, including mold issues, so they are considering demolishing the house and re-building rather than repairing. He said their insurance company came out and inspected the house and using some computer software, gave him an estimate of what they feel the cost to rebuild would be but there is a $100,000 difference from the builder’s estimate which is $1,020,000. Mr. D’Antoni asked him of that how much State Farm Insurance is paying and Mr. Pattanam said he did not know yet. He told the members they are living in an apartment near Exit 1 and he is a software engineer trying to start up his own company here in Nashua. State Farm has been saying it would take five months but so far it has been fourteen months and it will take about seven more months to rebuild if they were to start today. It is a very nice house. He said Nashua has been a great city to him and his family. Mr. D’Antoni asked if someone said they would take the house away from you today, what would he consider a fair price. Mr. Pattanam said the land is $200,000 but the building is all smoked- out and then there’s the cost to demolish the building. Mr. Gagnon said it is somewhat difficult to put a value on right now. If you do not rebuild most insurance companies will not give you full value. Mr. Pattanam said that when the insurance agent gets a new claim for a fire they tend to that fire and put his on hold because it is a custom house. He said it is a good 1 of 2 thing that the city is only taxing the land but he still doesn’t understand why the land is being taxed at all. Mr. Gagnon said it is still an improved parcel and has some value. Mr. D’Antoni said by law the land has to be taxed on the market value. Mr Pattanam explained the reason they did not file the proration application immediately is that it is a very stressful experience to go through such a tragedy and there had been no information given to him regarding this application by the city. He said he believes the city should be more proactive with getting this information out to victims of this type of tragedy and also he feels that the 60-day deadline to file is too short, given everything that needs to be done by the owners following such a disaster. He suggested that since the Fire Department knows of all the fires in the city, perhaps they can notify the Assessing Department when these occur so the Assessing Department can make the victims aware of it. This would show they care for the people. These people are stressed financially and emotionally. Some do not even have enough insurance. Mr. Pattanam suggested giving the information to victims shortly after the fire and at least give them six months to file the application. After some further discussion, Mr. and Mrs. Pattanam thanked the Board for their time and left the meeting. Residential Appraiser Greg Turgiss told the Board that all the criteria has been met with regards to RSA 76:21 and he feels that the application should be accepted because he believes the intent of the statute is to assist taxpayers who are in a very bad situation and since 2013 was the first year this was offered, the information really was not out there. Everyone in attendance agreed with Mr. Pattanam that the victims of an unintended fire or natural disaster should have the proration application sent to them at some point or they should at least be made aware it exists. Deputy Assessor Andrew LeMay said he would talk to Chief Assessor Angelo Marino and see what would be the best way to achieve this. MOTION BY Daniel Gagnon to accept the late filing and approve this application for proration. SECONDED BY Dominic D’Antoni. MOTION CARRIED. Staff Items: Supervisor of Assessing Administration, Ms. Louise Brown, presented a warrant for land use change tax and current use lien releases for Map B/Lots 20 & 57 (the Monis property) off of East Dunstable Road. This property was divided into several house lots which were sold to three different entities. None of these lots meets the 10-acre minimum requirement so the current use classification must be removed and land use change tax billed based on the current market value. MOTION BY Daniel Gagnon to adjourn at 9:30 AM SECONDED BY Dominic D’Antoni. MOTION CARRIED. Transcribed by: Cheryl Walley Department Coordinator 2 of 2