Letter

Leicester town assessor clarifies sale of mobile home

By Anne M. Sapienza, IAO | Assessor, Town of Leicester

Recently there has been some misinformation and controversy over the county sale of a property on Wheelock Rd. in the Town of Leicester. As the person responsible for the assessment roll for the town, I would like the opportunity to clarify some issues.

The most important issue is that there was no “misclassification” of the property. The property class code is exactly what I wanted it to be, 210 single family dwelling. Let’s talk about the property class code for a minute.

This is a general description of land and improvements to the land. I chose not to use another code, 270 Manufactured Housing, because of valuation issues. The property class code is only one tool for the assessor to develop a fair and equitable assessment for a parcel of land. The property class code does not legally state allowed zoning or legal use of the property as it is only a general tool for the assessor.

As to the other misinformation and I quote, “Because of the misclassification; this is something you couldn’t discover.”, I can just picture all of the finger pointing that went on at the Livingston County offices. Then someone said, hey, let’s throw the assessor under the bus and save face.

Sorry folks. The gentleman that was hired to put together your brochure for the auction stated in the brochure, and I quote: “3 BEDROOM, 2 BATH, DOUBLEWIDE RANCH.”

Now I do not care for the slang term “DOUBLEWIDE”, being used for the legal term “Manufactured Housing,” but unfortunately it is used commonly in this area to define a home that is titled through motor vehicles and has a VIN number.

Also, a few years back, the Livingston County Assessor’s Association pushed for a public website that would include Building Style and more detailed information.

The IT Department worked very hard on this and was able to create a program. So, anyone could have gone to the website, looked at this parcel and noted that it said building style, “Manufactured Housing”.

One possible way to avoid misunderstandings and poor communication may be to include the Real Property Tax Service office in the foreclosure proceedings.

That office has excellent staff with access to the assessor’s most recent data.