David Riley

Staff writer http://rochesterdemocrat.ny.newsmemory.com/

Grievance Day comes but once a year — the lone shot for home and business owners to challenge how much lo­cal officials say their properties are worth, and by extension, the size of their tax bills.

For Monroe County towns this year, that date was May 27. It was a deadline for dissatisfied homeowners to formally ask for their property assessments to be re­duced and one of the busiest dates on the cal­endar for local asses­sors.

It also was a big day for an Irondequoit resi­dent with a one-man business called “The Tax Opposer.” Chad M. Hummel of­fers to shepherd proper­ty owners through the grievance process if he agrees their assess­ments appear unfair. When clients win, he gets a percentage of their sav­ings. If they lose, he said, he charges them nothing.

Hummel said he came up with the idea after suc­cessfully fighting to low­er his own home assess­ment. He said he filed more than 200 complaints with area towns as of last week’s cutoff. Business is growing, and by his count, he has handled about 700 challenges since he began in 2009.

The vast majority of Tax Opposer clients have owned property in Perin­ton, Penfield or Webster. Residents of those towns may be familiar with Hummel’s mailings, which promote his suc­cess rate — some 95 per­cent of his clients have seen some relief, he said.

Hummel said he brings a motto to his work: “If you don’t complain, then they don’t care.”

Perhaps unsurprising­ly, not everyone in local government is enamored with Hummel’s efforts.

In Webster, where Hummel filed 96 assess­ment complaints this year — nearly half of all chal­lenges the town received — Supervisor Ron Nesbitt said he believes the Tax Opposer “is doing this for mass marketing, for mon­ey.”

Hummel mainly relies on taking complaints to small claims court, the second step in the griev­ance process after a Board of Assessment Re­view hearing, Nesbitt said. Small claims hearing officers are more likely to offer most people at least some relief, he said.

That leaves everyone else in town to pick up a bit more of the tax burden to fund town and school op­erations, Nesbitt said.

“In the end, this hurts everybody,” he said.

Hummel denied that small claims court hands out victories with ease and said if his clients re­ceive reductions, it’s just because their assess­ments are too high. Call­ing Nesbitt’s view “bi­zarre,” Hummel said he simply plays by the rules that government set up for homeowners to chal­lenge assessments.

“It’s their system, and we’re jumping through their hoops,” he said.

Hummel also said he turns away many poten­tial clients if he thinks they are assessed correct­ly or even too low.

Property owners can and do go through the grievance process on their own, but Hummel said many of his custom­ers have tried without success. The procedure is filled with “potholes and pitfalls,” he said.

“I’m trying to bring some balance to the play­ing field,” he said.

Assessors in Penfield and Perinton did not re­turn calls for comment.

Hummel and Nesbitt don’t see eye to eye in a number of other areas.

Nesbitt questioned whether Hummel was blurring ethical lines. Hummel is an attorney with a private law prac­tice, but the Tax Opposer is not affiliated with his le­gal work. Nesbitt noted that some of the wins list­ed on the Tax Opposer website came in court, and he questioned when Hummel is serving in which role.

“Is he an attorney or is he a Tax Opposer?” Nes­bitt asked. “Is he giving le­gal advice?”

Hummel said he tells all his clients that while he happens to be a lawyer, he is not providing them with law advice through the Tax Opposer business.

“I don’t have any ethi­cal problems,” he said. “It’s perfectly legal.”

Nesbitt and Hummel also disagree on whether Webster needs a town­wide revaluation, which has not happened in about 10 years. Nesbitt com­plained that a Tax Oppos­er marketing letter earli­er this year was inaccu­rate and misrepresented his position on the sub­ject.

Hummel said he was simply referring to a newspaper column that Nesbitt wrote on the topic.

Ultimately, Hummel said he does not believe lo­cal officials intentionally set property values too high, but that towns lack the manpower to make sure every assessment is correct. They also are pri­marily concerned with raising enough to fund their budgets, he said.

“I think the system lends itself to passively over-assessing people,” Hummel said.

Nesbitt said he thinks people often challenge their assessments not be­cause they think they are inaccurate, but because they simply want lower taxes. He pointed to ev­erything from state tax policy to school taxes — not assessments — as the real problem.

“The problem here is taxes are too high, and people don’t know any other way but to go after their assessment,” Nes­bitt said.

DRILEY Twitter.com/rilzd