Program Will Eliminate Miscellaneous Parcel Assessment

HARWICH – The assessing department has put in motion a plan to remove “miscellaneous parcels” from the tax rolls. 

Miscellaneous parcels are lots which people are claiming and paying taxes on but which cannot be identified on the ground. Essentially, the owner is known but not the location. 

Such parcels are assessed at a reduced rate because they are presumed to be landlocked, according to Board of Assessors Chair Richard Waystack.

The town currently has 132 active miscellaneous accounts with a combined value of $1,225,200, which generates $7,609 in property taxes annually. Waystack said 77 of the parcels are assessed to taxpayers and 55 of them are owned by the town. Taxes are overdue on eight of the parcels, Waystack said.

The lots total 147.19 acres. Many are small lots that are not considered buildable, he said. Many of the deeds are very old; some hand-written with boundary descriptions based on features of the landscape that make them very difficult to locate, Waystack said.    

Waystack told the select board last week that the state Department of Revenue (DOR) does not allow communities to assess such parcels whose location is not known. The assessing department has been trying to address the situation for 15 years, he said. In 2010, the department considered dropping miscellaneous  parcels based on a DOR directive.

The board is putting in place provisions requiring that people claiming to have such parcels provide the assessing department with a recorded survey identifying the location of the land by Dec. 31, or the account will be dropped. Parcels having outstanding back taxes can be dropped immediately, according to Waystack, but the assessing department will provide a time frame for people to file claims because it can be difficult to get an engineer or surveyor lined up to do a survey.

 All new parcels are to be assigned a map and parcel number and must include a recorded deed and recorded survey corresponding to the description in the deed, he said. The decisions to drop parcels will be made by the director of assessing and the finance director. 

The town may need a title abstractor to assist with the process, Waystack said, recommending tapping Article 39 of the 2022 annual town meeting for funding. That article approved $500,000 to be expended by the select board to pay for researching owners unknown land, miscellaneous or undesignated parcels in the town’s assessing database, or mapping system.

A title abstractor would be cheaper than paying for an attorney to examine and research recorded surveys to see how they fit into town maps, he said.

A vote of the select board will be needed to drop the parcels. Select Board member Michael MacAskill offered a motion for the board to support the request as presented.

Select Board member Donald Howell said he wanted to see the parcels first. 

“We don’t know where those parcels are,” said Waystack. “If you have one, give us a plan.”

“We don’t know what we’re throwing into the hopper to get an outcome,” said Howell of the proposal.

Waystack said there is a list of names of the people who have been paying taxes on the parcels — payments are as little as $3.71 — and nobody is going to be injured by the process. If people have a deed, they can let the assessing department know where the land is located by a survey and it will be placed on the tax rolls. Letters will be sent out to people claiming miscellaneous parcels with notification that they must provide the assessing department with a recorded survey by the end of the year.

The board voted 4-1 to support the initiative with Howell dissenting. Waystack said the assessors will make quarterly presentations to the select board on the progress of the program.