City real estate evaluation under way

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — After receiving several complaints from concerned homeowners, officials at the assessor’s office want to warn residents that, during an ongoing real estate inspection program, they may be asked to verify records for both the interior and exterior of their homes and businesses. In accordance with state mandates, the city is currently undertaking a three-year reinspection program of all real estate for valuation purposes. Vision Appraisal has been contracted by the city to review one-third of the city this year, and earlier this week the company began reviewing the northwestern section of the city, according to Assessor Dennis Comee. According to Vision Appraisal’s plans, the re-evaluation will be broken into three parts and over the next three years, buildings located in three different sections of the city will be inspected. “They are going to be looking at all of the buildings, whether they be commercial, residential and industrial,” said Mr. Comee. “This is a mandatory program that the state tells us we have to do every nine years and we have to go measure and inspect all buildings inside and out. All this is doing is just getting a knowledge of what is there.” Mr. Comee said he began receiving phone calls earlier this week of residents concerned with people measuring their homes and asking to come inside, something he said shouldn’t worry homeowners. “We started Monday and people have been calling,” said Mr. Comee. “Really I don’t blame them — letting a stranger in the house can be difficult. People should know that this is for real estate tax purposes. They will be measuring the outside and they are going to be checking the inside to see how many rooms are in each building, just to make sure our information is right.” The most frequent errors in filing can be attributed to illegal home construction, according to Mr. Comee. “We find small things here and there. Sometimes people do work on their homes without permits,” said Mr. Comee. Although the evaluation is meant to correct changes to the various buildings across the city, Mr. Comee said it is essentially to verify that the records submitted to his office are accurate. “We just want to make sure the information we have is correct,” said Mr. Comee. “If something is wrong, we will simply make the necessary corrections.” oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 3 on 9/19/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 222)