The Unethical Practices of Appraising

I don't write about my property lawsuit often, but Attorney Leonard has released the appraisals paid for by the taxpayer to oppose my upcoming lawsuit at the Board of Tax and Land Appeal. The City has "bought" an appraisal without any concern about neighborhood property equity.

Berkeley Street has two unique properties (51 and 61) that stand alone when compared to the rest of the neighborhood. Excluding these, Attorney Leonard now has our property as the highest valued property on Berkeley Street. Many homes are nicely finished and 12 of the homes are more than 20% larger than ours.

So, my next door neighbor had the Nashua Assessor perform a 2019 abatement on their 4200 square foot property, with 1000 square feet of new construction and many renovations and yard items. The Assessor determined the appraisal to be $680,000. The Board approved the valuation. My property, right next door, is 3342 square feet, renovated but with original wiring, plumbing, plaster walls and few yard items would now, according to City hired Vern Gardner, appraised for $800,000.

Attorney Leonard has rejected all attempts to negotiate and ignored my emails to set up a date for the BTLA required mediation. She stands firmly behind this work. Apparently, the business of property appraisal and prostitution are quite similar. It appears, Mr. Gardner bid his business out to the highest paying John and was willing to performing any "favors" they wished. The 2018 and 2019 appraisals by Mr. Gardner and my 2018 appraisal are on the www.goodgov.org website.

The risk exposure to the City for the 41 Berkeley Street appeal was about $2500. The Mayor and the Attorney Bolton chose to create an expensive war funded by the taxpayers. All in, this will cost taxpayers more than $50,000. Why did Attorney Bolton take this course of action? Because the Mayor’s feeling were hurt; it was personal. And Lawyers love to win and City lawyers believe their job is to save the city money. But property assessments are not about saving the city money; they all about determining fair and equitable assessments. The legal office should save the cut-throat, “in it to win it” obsession to other types of litigation. Let’s maintain the highest level of ethics to our assessing practices.

In my next post, I will take a close look at my neighbors property, Mayor Donchess, and perform a "Gardner" style appraisal. Lets see what the Mayor's fair share comes out to. He has been underpaying for years and graciously allowing his neighbors to pay his fair share.

Another day with the beast!