New NYC Property Tax Bill Rules Complicate Corrections

Fixing a mistake on your property tax bill just got harder.

The New York City Department of Finance adopted a rule change on Jan. 5 that affects the way property owners can apply to fix clerical errors like incorrect square footage, number of units or zoning classification.

The agency said the new rules are intended to clarify the kinds of issues that can be challenged. But property tax lawyers say they add more complications to an already-onerous process.

Owners used to be able to correct mistakes on their property tax bills going back six years. Under the new rules, that window is cut in half. The new rules also add more steps to the process of filing for a correction and narrow the definition of a clerical error.

New NYC Property Tax Bill Rules Complicate Corrections — Elliott Arkin (Photo via Ava Arkin)

The rule change is bad news for property owners like Brooklyn artist Elliott Arkin, who lives in a building in the Columbia Street Waterfront District with a restaurant on the ground floor. For almost three decades, Arkin’s building was classified as residential, limiting annual increases in its assessed value.

But in 2020, the Finance Department reclassified the building as commercial. The tax increases were minimal at first, so Arkin didn’t think much about it. But by 2024, his taxes had shot up about 500 percent. He hired a lawyer and was going to challenge the assessment, but has since decided to scrap those plans because of the new rules, he said.

“The rules changing have put an enormous amount of limitations on how I can contest it,” Arkin said. “My taxes have gone up a lot and it’s something I really have to take into consideration as to what I’m going to do with the building in the next few years. I’m subject to being forced out.”

A Finance Department spokesperson said the old rules “often resulted in repeated challenges of the same issue across multiple forums, even after previous denials by the Tax Commission.”

The spokesperson said the agency hopes to establish clearer guidelines and minimize redundancy.

Property tax lawyer Benjamin Williams of Rosenberg & Estis said he has saved property owners millions by fixing factual errors on their assessments, but reimbursements will be more limited under the new rules.

“What kind of city do we want to live in?” Williams asked at a hearing before the changes were adopted. “Do we want to live in a city where the government realizes they made a mistake and they’re willing to give us our tax money back?”