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THE $75 MILLION QUESTION HAMPTON REFUSES TO ANSWER

THE TOWN STILL WON'T ANSWER THE ONE QUESTION THAT MATTERS


The Town of Hampton continues to perform legal gymnastics, smoke-screening the public with arguments about reassessments, abatements, tax bills, and appraisal methodology. But none of that answers the one question at the heart of this case.


Did the Town ever have the legal authority to replace the statutory and constitutional requirements for a lawful property valuation with a statistical computer model instead of conducting a complete physical reassessment?


That is the issue.


Instead of confronting it head-on, the Town argues everything except whether it had the legal authority to do what it did.


The case has never been about asking the courts to recalculate property values or hand out tax abatements. It asks a much more fundamental question: Can a municipality ignore the legal prerequisites for taxation and then expect everyone to accept the results simply because a computer-generated numbers?


The evidence already shows serious concerns about the Town's assessment process, and other government entities have also found significant problems with how Hampton maintained assessment equity. Yet the Town continues to defend the outcome without first establishing that it had lawful authority to use the process it chose.


If there was no lawful authority to substitute statistical modeling for the statutory and constitutional requirements governing property valuation, then everything built upon that foundation deserves careful judicial review.


This appeal asks the courts to answer the question the Town keeps avoiding:


Before collecting millions of dollars in property taxes, did Hampton have the legal authority to abandon the valuation process required by New Hampshire law?


Until that question is answered, every argument about proportionality, assessments, and abatements puts the cart before the horse. Authority comes first. Everything else comes afterward.


That's the issue the Town continues to avoid.


Appellants filed a June 26, 2026, response to the Town's brief.


 
 
 

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