For New Jersey property tax appeal firms
Your appeal season, month by month.
Tax appeals run on a calendar the whole state shares. Here's what each part of it looks like for a firm using Apptiflo, and for one that isn't.
October 1
The new ratio table comes out.
The Chapter 123 table sets every town's allowed range for the coming tax year. Once it's loaded, every case, prospect and past client in your book is checked against it the same day.
You get one email naming the properties that moved, marked stronger or weaker. Past clients whose Freeze Act years just ended are flagged for another appeal.
Without it: Someone re-runs the ratio for each client by hand, or nobody does, and the repeat appeals go to whoever calls them first.
October to January
Build next season's list.
The property tax check is live on your website. Homeowners who search now get an answer; the ones who aren't ready yet join your watch list and hear from you, in your firm's name, when their numbers change.
The monthly sales report shows where appeals are building: towns where recent sales run above the allowed range, and towns that just revalued. That's where your ads, mailers and talks go.
Bring in the clients you had before, from a spreadsheet, so they're watched too.
Without it: A contact form and a phone number. Anyone who visits in the fall and isn't ready to call is gone by February.
December 1 and January 15
The off-calendar deadlines.
Added and omitted assessment appeals are due December 1. Burlington, Gloucester and Monmouth run their own calendar, with appeals due January 15. Every case's deadline is worked out from its town and case type, and your list is sorted by it.
Without it: A calendar and a good memory, and a known trap for firms that mostly practise in other counties.
February 1
The assessment postcards land.
The homeowners on your watch list hear from you first, by name.
Everyone searching gets an answer from your site at any hour, and the ones with a case ask you to review it. Each request arrives worked up: the assessment, comparable sales, a market value, the Chapter 123 verdict and the filing deadline.
Without it: The phone rings with people who may or may not have a case, and each call means pulling sales before you know which.
February to April 1
The crunch.
An evaluation takes seconds: the assessment, ranked comps, a market value, the verdict and the deadline, together. The Form A-1 comp exhibit is ready to print.
Cases are assigned, so the team can see who has what, and the list is sorted by deadline: April 1, or May 1 in revaluation towns.
Without it: Associates pulling sales by hand, deadlines in a spreadsheet, and work turned away for lack of hours.
May to August
Hearings and judgments.
Close each case with how it ended. A reduction fills in its Freeze Act years, and the property joins your past clients, watched for its next appeal.
Without it: Results live in paper files, and nobody counts them.
September
Plan the next season.
Your own results, by tax year and county: cases closed, reductions and estimated tax saved, from the outcomes you recorded. They're figures you can check and quote.
Next season's towns come from the sales report. Then October 1 comes around again.
Without it: Starting from zero.
If you already advertise, start now.
Your clicks this fall don't have to wait for February. A visitor who isn't ready to call becomes a watcher who hears from you by name when the postcards land, instead of a click you paid for and lost. We install the check on your site during the 30-day trial.
It doesn't give legal advice or promise a result. What it doesn't do