Tax Assessor

You will be notified annually on or before February 1st of the tax year of the assessed value of your property. The annual notice is in the form of a post card mailed to the address of record. The notices includes a land, building and total assessment for administrative purposes as well as prior year’s annual taxes exclusive of interest, penalties and/or added assessments. You should not use this notice for federal and state income tax purposes.

There are periodic assessed value changes that are made annually on a neighborhood-wide basis. Recent legislation requires submission of a plan and subsequent approvals from the County Board of Taxation and the State Division of Taxation as well as notice to the municipality prior to implementing these changes. These changes are necessary in order to maintain acceptable levels of assessments within the municipality. Since the Assessor’s Office is clearly responsible with maintaining assessments as close as possible to full and fair market value, annual changes in assessments must be made to adjust for value changes experienced in area neighborhoods.

After you have received your annual tax assessment notice and have had the opportunity to compare your assessment to the market value of your property, you will have an educated idea of the fairness of your assessment. If you have specific questions in this regard, please feel free to contact this office weekdays between 8:30 A.M. and 4:30 P.M. to schedule an appointment for further review. If after review you are not satisfied that the assessed value of your property reflects a lawful relationship to market value, you may wish to file a formal tax appeal. You must contact the Ocean County Tax Board at the address and phone number on the reverse of your Tax Assessment Notice.

The filing deadline is April 1st of the tax year at issue. Filed means received at the offices of the Ocean County Tax Board, Washington Street, Courthouse, Toms River, New Jersey.

There are a wide variety of tax exemption and tax deduction statutes. Some examples are Senior Citizen Deduction, Disability Deduction, Certain Surviving Spouse Deduction, Veteran and Surviving Spouse of Veteran or Serviceperson Deduction, Disabled Veteran and Surviving Spouse of Disabled Veteran or Serviceperson Exemption. See the download center above for forms and qualifications for each of these deductions.

A review of some common misconceptions in this regard will assist you in your decision to proceed:
1. Land and building assessments cannot be appealed separately
2. Property taxes are not an issue during an appeal since the Assessor’s Office and County Tax Board has no control over the budgets submitted by the Municipality, County and/or school systems.
3. The municipality cannot accept for filing a petition intended for the County Tax Board.
4. The filing deadline is April 1st of the tax year at issue. Filed means received at the offices of the Ocean County Tax Board, Washington Street, Courthouse, Toms River, New Jersey.
5. Comparable assessments of other properties are not acceptable as evidence of the value of your property
6. Assessments cannot be avoided by the failure or refusal to obtain a certificate of occupancy from the Construction Department
7. Payment of the first quarter real estate taxes and municipal charges (water, sewer, etc.) are a pre-condition to the satisfactory completion of the appeal process