Suffolk County Property Tax Grievance

Suffolk County Property Tax Grievance Filing Deadline – Third Tuesday in May – May 20, 2025

Property tax rates in New York, especially in Suffolk and Nassau counties, are among the highest in the nation! Property values are constantly changing, and the valuation calculated by the municipality is not always accurate. The real value of your property can be affected by so many factors which assessors do not always consider.

Your best chance for reducing your Suffolk County property taxes is to work with experts in commercial property valuation like Realty Tax Challenge (“RTC”) to professionally grieve your real estate taxes. It is important to understand that the appeal process is not the same in Suffolk County as it is in Nassau. Here is an overview.

The Suffolk County Property Tax Grievance Process

• Fill out and send back our retainer agreement to get started.
• When municipalities decide on an estimated value for your commercial property, they may be over-assessing the real value of your property, which leads to you over-paying your share of property taxes. You could spend up to 35% of your commercial building’s operating income towards paying taxes, so this isn’t something you want to take a chance on.
• Once you begin consulting with RTC, we will review the assessor’s estimate of the market value of your property. We will take a close look at your commercial property and all of its attributes. We use our proprietary database to analyze it against comparable valuations and ascribe our value. This is a much more detailed and precise process than what the assessor typically does and through our expertise we can assign a real value based on an extensive list of factors.
• After our evaluation of your commercial properties, if it appears that you are over-assessed, the Tax Certiorari process begins with filing a complaint (also known as a grievance). Our office will begin the process of reducing your taxes.
• There are two levels of review:
• Administrative review – the “grievance” process is conducted at the municipal level with the Board of Assessment Review.  Once the appeal is submitted, the board may then request supporting financial documentation. Our office will review and ensure that the requested documentation is provided.
• Judicial review – If we are unsuccessful with our grievance application, an Article 7 petition is prepared and submitted on your behalf. The petition is a legal pleading filed with Suffolk County Supreme Court. To pursue a judicial review, you must first go through administrative review process.
• When you work with Realty Tax Challenge, we guide you through the complete process. There are no fees unless we obtain a reduction of your assessment. We will always work to get the best reduction possible for your commercial property.
• Once we have successfully obtained your Suffolk County commercial property tax reduction, we work to obtain the refund of the overpaid taxes and ensure that your property tax bills are correct. If the tax grievance process takes over a year, your reduction will still be retroactive to the beginning of the year in which you initially filed.
• As a result of the settlement, the reduced assessment will then remain unchanged for an additional 3 year “moratorium”. During this time the property owner agrees not to grieve their taxes and municipality agrees not to increase the assessment, so this effectively locks in your lowered assessment. We will continue to monitor during that time to ensure that the assessment has not been raised.

It is important to grieve your Suffolk commercial property taxes annually. The only time you would not grieve is for the period of three years after you have won a reduced assessment, as described above. Even if you have been denied in the past, it has no impact on a new property tax grievance application, since real estate values are constantly changing. If you miss the deadline for filing the grievance, you cannot file for that year. However, we can help you to determine if you have any open prior tax years. If so, we can take over those tax years and negotiate them along with the current year for a tax refund.

You must file by the deadline, or you lose your chance to save money! NOT challenging your taxes can cost you thousands of dollars each year.­

Your taxes can also never go up as a result of the filing of a grievance. It is actually against New York State law for taxes to be raised due to a grievance filing.

Our offices handles the filing of tax grievances on behalf of all types of businesses and corporations throughout Suffolk County, including the Towns of Babylon, Brookhaven, East Hampton, Huntington, Islip, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Smithtown, South Hampton, and Southold. Any entity who pays commercial property taxes in Suffolk County can grieve an assessment, including commercial property owners, contract vendees and commercial tenants who are required to pay all of the property taxes pursuant to a lease or written agreement.

Ready to get started?

If you’re ready to get started, give us a call today at 914-348-9473 or fill out this form to begin the process. We can answer any questions you have, and get you started on the tax appeal process right away!