No evidence of renovations found in hundreds of homes at centre of property tax scandal

Fredericton's Kandise Brown received a new property assessment in the mail this week that lowered her tax bill by $625.

But that change doesn't just address a problem with Brown's taxes.

It proves Service New Brunswick tried to overcharge her in March by falsely claiming her house had undergone significant renovations when it had not.

"It's scandalous," said Brown. "Somebody had to make this decision. How many people were involved and okaying it?"

Widespread errors

Service New Brunswick was hit with embarrassing revelations this week that inspections of 1,864 houses by New Brunswick property tax assessors found widespread errors inflicted on homeowners by the province's new assessment system - mostly in the form of inflated valuations and tax bills.

I think people should be fired.- Kandise Brown, property owner

But worse than that for the organisation, the same review also turned up no evidence of renovations on most of those 1,864 homes.

That's a problem, because Service New Brunswick managers billed all the homes as though they had been renovated back in March.

In New Brunswick, unrenovated properties are legally protected from having tax bills increase by more than 10 per cent per year no matter how much assessments increase. 

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In Brown's case that would have limited her initial tax increase to $255. But there's no restriction on increases to renovated homes and so her first bill increased $880 instead. 

"I think people should be fired," said Brown.

Few homes were renovated

It was the renovation claims on all the houses - not bad assessments - that caused tax bills to homeowners to jump as high as they did.

But as assessors revisited the 1,864 homes this spring, it became clear very few had been fixed up at all.

On Rothesay's Ian Crescent seven owner-occupied homes received tax increases in March of 26 per cent or more after Service New Bruinswick managers declared them all to have been renovated.

A visit by an assessor this spring confirmed none had been.

Around the corner on Highland Avenue an assessor found all nine homes Service New Brunswick had billed as being renovated were not.

And in Dieppe, on Amirault Street assessors found only two renovated single family homes out of 23 that been billed that way in March.

Service New Brunswick did not respond to a CBC request asking how many homes initially declared to be renovated were found by assessor reviews not to be, but insiders say it is close to 90 per cent.

Excited by large assessment increases

One Service New Brunswick employee, who won praise in March for exposing problems with property tax bills after speaking with CBC News on the condition of anonymity, now says managers were excited by large assessment increases generated by the new assessment system and never stopped to think they might be false readings.

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"Those who applied the (renovation) formula have no concern for the taxpayer," the employee said this week.  "They didn't even consider it. That's how overconfident they were with the inflated numbers."

On Saint John's Beach Road five homes were billed as though they had undergone extensive renovations although assessors later determined that none had.  

Brian Lynch owns one of those homes and, like Brown, would like to see those who decided to falsely declare homes had been renovated to maximise tax revenue face discipline.

"The phantom renovations put in, in order to justify going over the 10 per cent limit - that I'm completely perplexed by," said Lynch. "Whoever was responsible should have to bear some consequences for their actions."