The Candia Select Board reviewed 20 taxpayer abatement requests for tax year 2024 and heard staff recommendations after in-person inspections and file reviews.

Assessing staff identified several categories of errors: land-condition adjustment factors that flipped during a system conversion, misdrawn building sketches, incorrect finished-area counts and condition ratings, and parcels with current-use status. Staff recommended grant or denial by parcel after field inspections and comparison to neighborhood factors.

For multiple properties staff recommended reductions after correcting a land adjustment factor that had been inverted during the town’s data conversion; for others the inspection found deferred maintenance (plumbing, roofing, missing utilities) or inaccuracies in the recorded structure area. A number of municipal properties and small parcels were reviewed as well.

The board reviewed each synopsis and indicated concurrence with staff recommendations for the majority of the requests; staff said taxpayers will be notified of the abatement decisions and informed of appeal options to the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals or Rockingham County Superior Court. Assessing staff also explained that some changes had been applied before bills were issued and that refunds will be issued where taxpayers already paid; credits will be applied where an outstanding balance exists.

Select board members asked follow-up questions about how abatement adjustments affect the townwide assessed valuation used for tax-rate calculations. Assessors said adjustments and newly constructed value will be summarized in September when the town’s final valuation for the levy is calculated.

Board members approved staff to proceed with processing the recommended abatements and to prepare the necessary signatory paperwork. Those abatements will be reflected in the town’s records and taxpayers will have statutory appeal rights.