Nassau County has frozen its property tax assessment once again for the fourth year in a row, leaving taxpayers stuck with their assessment unless disputing it by grieving their taxes.
“Four consecutive years of frozen assessments has created a degraded assessment roll, and that unfortunately means that we are back to the days when, in order for a homeowner to protect themselves and their family from unjust over taxation, they must grieve their assessment,” Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé (D–Freeport) said. “If you have not already done so, I strongly encourage you to exercise your rights and visit my website to learn how you can complete the simple application process without paying an outside firm to do it for you.”
The frozen tax roll maintains the assessment of the county’s 385,000 homeowners for the 2025-2026 tax year.
“As a result of the instability in the real estate market, for a multitude of reasons including post COVID and inflation, it is prudent to freeze the rolls for an additional year to provide stability to taxpayers,” Acting Assessor Joseph Adamo said in a statement reported on by Newsday.
Taxpayers can challenge the assessment of their property by filing a tax grievance, which can be done online.
The deadline to grieve one’s taxes has also been extended to March 18.
A Newsday report from 2019 showed about $2.7 billion in property taxes were shifted over the eight years. It also revealed that people who did not challenge their property taxes were assessed at a level 29.2% greater than those who did.
The freezing of the county’s assessments again was initially reported by Newsday last week.
“In the wake of Newsday’s recent report about the Blakeman administration freezing Nassau’s assessment rolls for the fourth consecutive year, it is more important than ever for homeowners to grieve their assessed value and protect themselves from the further degradation of the tax rolls,” Nassau County Deputy Minority Leader Arnold W. Drucker (D-Plainview) said.
“Grieving is simple and you can do it yourself – you do not have to pay a politically connected tax outside firm,” Drucker said. “If you have not already filed a challenge, visit my website today and learn, step by step, how to exercise your rights.”
Nassau began to freeze tax rolls in 2008, a practice that was continued by former Executive Ed Mangano for eight years before his successor, Laura Curran, lifted it in 2018.
After calling for a reassessment of approximately 400,000 homes at the time, Curran re-implemented the freeze for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2023 tax years due to what she called instability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During that period, thousands of residents filed grievances on the value of their homes, winning reduced assessments and shifting the tax burden onto others who did not challenge their assessments.
In March, Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips said the county was not ready to undergo a reassessment, saying that her audit revealed the county relying on “flawed data.”
Nassau County has settled about 70% of the tax assessment disputes in recent years, Newsday reported. From 2012-2019, the county settled 1 million, or 80%, of its tax disputes.
According to Newsday, Nassau County’s tax reductions have risen over the past years, with reductions granted to 48% of taxpayers who disputed their assessment in 2021-2022, 73% in 2022-23 and 67% in 2023-24. In 2019-2020, 80% of disputes resulted in reductions, which then dropped to 25% in 2020-2021.
