Questions We Will Ask.
The questions that we ask will
depend on the nature of the property. First we will ask you to
identify your property by address, block, lot, and municipality.
We will ask you the assessed value broken down by land,
improvements and total. This information is contained on your tax
bill or notice of assessment. If you do not have this information
handy, we will look it up on our database which has assessment
information for all commercial and vacant land parcels in 13 New
Jersey counties.
Because your tax assessment depends
on the market value of your property we will need to know about
your property. All of the questions are designed to help us
determine whether we can help you reduce your assessment.
Which of the following best
describes your property?
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Warehouse.
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Industrial building. (light
manufacturing, chemicals, heavy industry)
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Multi-family apartment building
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Truck terminal.
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Shopping center.
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Office building
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Hotel.
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Stores.
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Stores with apartments above.
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Restaurant.
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Vacant land.
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Condominium
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Single family home.
We will want to know how large your
property is. Although the lot area is important we are primarily
interested in the building size. We can look up the lot area in
our data base. Different types of buildings are measured in
different ways. For most types of buildings we will want to know
how many square feet you have and how many stories the buildings
are. For industrial buildings we will want to know the ceiling
heights, percentage of office area, and how many loading docks you
have. This will be particularly important for truck terminals. For
apartment buildings we will want to know how many apartments you
have.
We will want to know the age of the
structures. Depending on the location and description of your
property we may be able to make a pretty good guess.
We may want to know something about
the architectural style and building materials. Is your industrial
building steel or masonry? Do you have a brick garden apartment a
wood frame structure or a multi-story elevator building?
If you have a rented (income
producing) building we will have lots more questions. We will ask
you for income and expense statements for the past three years. If
your property has more than one tenant we will ask you for a rent
roll. We will ask you about each tenant. When did the lease begin?
How much rent did the tenant pay at the beginning of the lease?
How much rent does the tenant pay now? Is the lease net or gross?
If the lease is not completely net we will ask who pays for what
expenses.
