21 Mar Property taxes doubled after appraisal mistakes

New Jersey is notorious for pricey property taxes. It’s usually just a fact of life here, but sometimes, property taxes are inaccurately high because of appraisal mistakes.

When one Maplewood homeowner saw his property taxes jump 111 percent in just 18 months, he knew something was wrong. After further investigation, it turned out that his appraisal included a non-existent full bath, a phony half bath and wrongly measured square footage. The man tried to get the town and the appraisal company to correct the mistakes, to no avail.

The man’s experience was detailed in this Bamboozled column on NJ.com, which explains this battle and shows how you can fight wrongful increases in your property taxes.