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Owner asks Fairfield appeals board to cut home assessment to $450,000, cites nearby development and structural decay
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Summary
At the March 4 Board of Assessment Appeals hearing, Mary Elizabeth Barget asked the board to lower her home’s market value from the town’s $1,123,000 appraisal to $450,000, citing an aging structure, foundation and garage problems, highway noise, invasive knotweed and disruptive neighboring development.
Mary Elizabeth Barget appealed her property’s 2025 assessment at a March 4 hearing of the Fairfield Board of Assessment Appeals, telling the board the town’s appraisal of $1,123,000 overstates her home’s market value and asking that it be reduced to $450,000.
Barget, who said the house dates to about 1850 and was moved near I‑95, described multiple physical problems and neighborhood changes she said reduced marketability: cracked foundations, a garage she said must be demolished, leaking windows, roof damage and an invasion of feral cats. “It’s an 1850 house,” Barget said. She also told the panel that a developer who bought the neighboring lot told her he would “have me make me miserable till I move off of my property because he wanted my property too,” and that new apartments and a large mansion across the street have changed the neighborhood.
Barget said she submitted a packet of comparables through Tyler Technologies and asked the board to consider lot‑size and per‑square‑foot discrepancies she found in nearby mixed‑use sales. She told the panel that the state transportation division had previously promised to treat a patch of Japanese knotweed on her lot but lost funding, leaving her with an expensive infestation she must address herself.
Peter Rupert, a board member presiding at the hearing, acknowledged a packet and said he would add the materials to the file and follow up with the assessor’s office. Rupert explained the administrative next steps: he will present the petition to a majority of the board at a deliberation session for a vote, and the appellant will be notified by mail of the decision within seven days of that vote. He also reminded the appellant that any reduction would generally prevent another appeal until the next revaluation period (as stated at the hearing, five years).
The board did not render a decision at the hearing; Rupert said the panel is managing a heavy caseload and will decide at a later deliberation session. The decision letter will include instructions for judicial appeal if the appellant chooses to pursue that option.
