Bedford residents and business owners will receive a notice in their mailboxes in the next couple of weeks informing them about their new property assessment value.

Assessor Bill Ingalls, who has been working on the assessment on and off over the past nine months, said it’s too early to say whether Bedford residents will see increases in their tax bills.

“That is something we can’t answer yet, and we don’t know that until we get a tax rate. We don’t know because we’re going to get some increased revenue. It’s premature to say it’s going to go up,” Ingalls said, adding notices will go out by the first or second week in August.

To help residents better understand the assessment process, BCTV will air a workshop.

On Wednesday, July 23, Ingalls and Charles Reese, a real estate appraiser supervisor for the state Department of Revenue Administration, held an “Assessing Information Class” on the data, methods and process of assessing an entire town’s value.

Bedford had its last full town appraisal in 2003. According to state law, New Hampshire towns are required to do an assessment on their residential, commercial and industrial properties every five years.

An assessment is different than an appraisal, Reese said. Assessment takes into account only what is there, not a property’s potential.

“An assessor needs to value a large tract of land as all land. What we cannot do is value the property as a developer might who comes and looks at a tract of land,” Ingalls said, adding assessors are incapable of measuring the value of “raw land” as an appraiser would.

For instance, a piece of property with several acres of empty land would likely be assessed at less than what it would be appraised at for sale purposes because the appraisal would take into account what could be done with the land in the future.

Each year, the town monitors its equalization rate, which is a percentage indicating how much of a property’s value will be taxed. The equalization rate is determined by dividing the town’s total market value by the total assessed value.

This means finding out what properties are worth on the market and dividing that by what they’ve been assessed at for tax purposes.

Based on the town’s last full assessment in 2003 and the full market values for 2007, the town’s 2007 equalization rate was 89.4 percent.

Using the 89.4 percent equalization rate, a home assessed at $250,000 would be taxed on $223,500. Using the 2007 tax rate of $18.99 per $1,000 of assessed property value, that home’s tax bill would be $4,244 for the year.

When doing an assessment, the ideal equalization rate is obviously 100 percent. “The goal is to be between 90 and 100 percent,” Reese said.

For example, if the equalization rate rose to 95 percent after the current assessment is completed, and the tax rate for 2008 is set at $20 per $1,000 of assessed property value, the owner of the same $250,000 home would pay $4,750 for the year in taxes.

There are several things that can affect a property’s assessed value, including how much opens space there is on the property, conservation or discretionary easements and home improvements done before April 1 of the tax year.

For example, if someone puts an addition on their home in August 2008, they will not be taxed on it until the 2009 tax bills come out. If they install it in March 2009, it will be included in their assessment and the owner will be taxed on it that year.

For the last assessment, Bedford hired a private firm, Vision Appraisal, to visit all the properties in town and measure their values. This time, Ingalls said, he and assistant assessor Douglas Irvine are doing the appraisal on their own with some assistance and guidance from Vision Appraisal.

“We’re trying to do this inhouse to save the town some money,” Ingalls said, adding there are 8,150 properties in Bedford to be assessed.

For more information on property assessments or to appeal your assessed value after you get the notice, call the town Assessing Department at 472- 8104.