New Brunswick property tax hikes leave more questions than answers

New Brunswick is billing property owners a whopping $1.46 billion on the behalf of its municipalities.

Many property owners received their property tax bills in the mail on Friday, with some scratching their heads at the cost.

John Maisey owns one building outside of his primary residence that he rents out, considered non-owner occupied. He said he operates a break-even.

His rental property value has increased by 17.3 per cent, as non-owner occupied properties are not granted spike protection.

“Those that rent, to me, are being treated less than fairly by the province,” he said in an interview Monday.

“Well, for those renters that is their principal residence, but the owner of the property isn’t afforded that discount and at the end of the day this is a math equation.”

Maisey said it means he has to charge his tenants more to cover the cost, meaning his tenants are bearing the brunt of a property assessment that has risen out of their control.

He said the only thing that’s changed in the neighbourhood where his property is located is the sale of many of the properties around it.

It could mean an increase of $35 per unit.

For others, it’s a question of how the province is arriving at the assessments of each property.

Bryan Wilson opened his property tax bill to see about a 32-per cent increase, which he said will largely be offset by a dip in municipal property tax. But, he said he noticed his neighbourhood was all over the map.

“At first, yes, I looked at my neighbourhood … I saw that sale prices had gone up because a lot of buildings had been sold, until I saw some of those buildings assessments didn’t go up at the same time,” he said.

“It got me thinking,” he said. “Honestly, it makes no sense. As a taxpayer, I have no problems but we can figure out why some properties are assessed higher … and why others don’t.”

In Saint John, a property at 91 King St. that was purchased for $900,000 in 2020 saw its assessment drop to $203,000, while the land sits undeveloped.

Nicole Thomson said the property tax bill she received last week has left a sour taste in her mouth after moving here nearly a year ago.

She said she did her due diligence before purchasing the property she lives in now and at that time the property taxes were paid for, and no one told her what the cost could be.

Her bill is about $8,400 and it’s left Thomson confused and upset.

“What do people do if they don’t even have that set aside? You can go on equalized billing but if you take that amount and spread it over a 12-month period, that’s almost a thousand dollars a month. I don’t know who could afford that,” she said in an interview on Monday.

The province said Riverview, Moncton, Dieppe and Shediac had the highest assessments in the entire province, driven largely by population and economic growth.

“The 2023 Assessment Base is $81 billion,” said a spokesperson for Service New Brunswick.  “This is an increase of $8.0 billion from last year or 10.9 per cent. This increase is due to a strong real estate market and new construction.”

It said spike protection is available to owner-occupied properties.

Property assessments are mailed out in January and October of every year. Anyone can appeal their property assessment within 30 days of the date the assessment was mailed out, but the tax cannot be appealed. The deadline to appeal property assessments has expired for the year.

Editor’s note: This article was updated March 7, 2023 at 10:15 a.m. AT with a correction. The new version reflects that tax bills were mailed out in the first week of March, while property assessments were mailed out in January.