What is reappraisal?

Listers (or assessors) maintain data on each parcel within a town, which the State of Vermont Department of Taxes monitors to determine whether properties throughout the state are being assessed equitably. The state may determine that a town's current assessments are inequitable, and therefore the town will need to do one of the following forms of reappraisal:

  1. A complete reappraisal is a re-assessment of all town properties including the following:

    • interior property inspections

    • development of new land and building pricing schedules

    • adjustments and factors.

       The goal must be to implement new values for all properties that reflect 100% of fair market value.

  1. Rolling reappraisal or (Cyclical Reappraisal) is a type of complete reappraisal. What differentiates a rolling reappraisal from a complete reappraisal is that it is conducted and implemented over more than one year.

  2. Statistical update is a revaluation of all town properties but unlike a complete reappraisal does not require on-site property inspections except to confirm validity of data for a sample of properties. The goal must be to implement new values for all properties to reflect 100% of fair market value. If building permits are not required in your municipality and there is no program of systematic re-inspection of all property, this is likely not an acceptable method of establishing equitable values as any inequities that currently exist within the grand list may be magnified using a statistical update.

  3. Partial reappraisal is a reappraisal activity that by design is targeted to either less than all properties in a town or adjustments to a limited number of factors that will result in a change of value but will generally not result in bringing the entire municipality to 100% market value. The goal of a partial reappraisal is to improve the appraisal equity among specific categories, types and/or neighborhoods of properties within a town by bringing them to approximately the same level of appraisal as the rest of the properties in that town.