If you own a home, you pay taxes on it. These funds generally cover divisions within municipalities that are for betterment of the town/city (Police, Fire, Trash, Schools; etc). Whether these funds are always allocated effectively is another topic; but no matter where you own a home in MA there will be a tax due.

The “assessed value” of your home is issued on January 1 of given year. This amount is determined by the Town/City Assessor. As is often the case with taxes, they only seem to ever go up. So, you should pay careful attention each year as to the annual taxes due on your property. If you believe the assessed value and subsequent tax levied are not in line with the property value, then it is time to contest the assessment.

When contesting an assessed value you will have to file a “Tax Abatement”. Each town or city will have a channel to complete this document. Within the document you will outline specific information about your home, state reasons you feel it is inaccurately assessed, and site examples. Generally, there is a hard deadline for when the abatement must be filed (February 3, 2025 in Boston). If you miss this date there is no recourse until the following year. My suggestion is to always hand-deliver the document in person and ask for a stamped copy for receipt.

The success rate of abatements are very low unless you are filing as class action (ie. a 100 unit condo association files jointly against the town/city). This gets very expensive for the town to fight on legal front so there is a higher chance they will agree to abate the taxes. Having independently abated several assessments myself, I have yet to win against the assessor (even though I thoroughly cited clear and specific examples to justify a correction!). It is always an uphill battle going against “the powers that be”; but if you truly feel a property is not accurately assessed then you should always state your case. If nothing else, perhaps it may give the assessor pause next year.