Study Shows Lake Area & Lakefront Property Assessments Significantly Lag Actual Market Sale Value [with video]

During their weekly meeting Groton Selectmen held a joint session with the Board of Assessors to present the findings of a research study looking at fairness of property assessment values across different neighborhoods, with a particular focus on the lakes area.

An earlier story by The Groton Herald demonstrated that the average property tax contribution per homeowner in the lake district was actually lowest in town, mostly due to small houses and lot sizes, which led to additional complaints about unfair property assessment values, particularly on land with lakefront exposure.

(see (http://grotonherald.com/Main.asp SectionID=2&SubSectionID=27&ArticleID=5350)

The study undertaken by the tax assessor on behalf of the Board of Selectmen attempted to address this issue by comparing 10 years of property sales with the assessed value of the property at the time of sale across all areas of Groton. The numbers indicate rather conclusively that, in fact, the assessed value of both lakefront and lake area property significantly lags behind its actual market value.

The tax assessor's office revealed that this was due in part to their caution in raising values based on a small number of sales since the lake district itself averages only a handful of sales per year.

The study was based on more than 400 property sales across Groton during the past decade, with the lake district representing approximately 60 sales in that total.

At the conclusion of the presentation Selectman Josh Degan commented, "I think it was very important that this exercise was performed because there have been some misconceptions out there...people in the lake area are under the belief that once the rates were changed to reflect what should be occurring, they were being assessed higher than they should be and this exercise really shows that there is a lot of parity going on and that the correction that was put in place was appropriate. So one could construe for a long time that maybe things were undervalued in the area and I appreciate the correction that was brought in place and this entire exercise."