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THE BOARD OF TAX AND LAND APPEALS CONFIRMS HAMPTON TAXPAYERS WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE 2024 REVALUATION
- NH Muckraker
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
BTLA CONFIRMS HAMPTON TAXPAYERS' CONCERNS OVER THE 2024 REVALUATION AND TOWN PROPERTY DATA COLLECTION AND MAINTENANCE IN THEIR DECEMBER 2025 SUPPLEMENTAL ORDER AND NOTICE OF FEBRUARY 11, 2026, HEARING
The December 11, 2025, findings of the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeal are nothing short of an indictment of the 2024 revaluation process in the Town of Hampton. What taxpayers warned about, documented, and challenged was not paranoia, exaggeration, or sour grapes—it was real, systemic failure, now confirmed by the Board itself.
The Board found that Hampton’s 2024 reassessment exhibits regressive taxation, meaning lower-value homes are assessed at higher percentages of market value while higher-value properties enjoy discounted assessments. That is the very definition of unfair taxation. It punishes working families and shields wealth. This alone shatters any claim that the revaluation was equal or just.
The Board further exposed Hampton’s longstanding refusal to maintain a comprehensive measure-and-list process. The town hasn’t completed a full cyclical inspection in well over a decade—if ever. Instead, it relied on sales data and building permits, a lazy shortcut the Board explicitly found to be flawed, incomplete, and inaccurate. Properties that don’t sell or pull permits simply fall through the cracks, leaving assessments frozen in time while tax bills climb.
Even more damning, testimony from the town’s revaluation contractor minimized the importance of physical inspections—an assertion the Board directly rejected as contrary to accepted appraisal standards. The rules are clear: on-site inspections every 4–6 years are required to maintain accurate data. Hampton ignored them.
The Board also dismantled the town’s claims that all sale properties were measured and listed and that all permitted improvements were properly inventoried. The Board found those statements misleading and confirmed that numerous properties were never measured at all. That validates taxpayer accusations of breach of contract, raised 13 months earlier and brushed aside.
When the town claimed there were too few sales to justify a market time adjustment, the Board again found the town wrong—identifying numerous qualifying sales the town chose to ignore. This wasn’t bad luck. It was bad analysis.
Finally, the Board confirmed what taxpayers had already proven: systemic inconsistencies plague Hampton’s tax base—from grading and condition errors to oceanfront land values to condominium developments. These problems are town-wide, not isolated.
The Board’s conclusion is devastating: Hampton’s process is insufficient to maintain a database that is accurate, current, consistent, and complete.
And here is the unavoidable truth:
An insufficient process cannot produce fair or equal taxation.
The BTLA didn’t just validate taxpayer concerns—it confirmed them. The 2024 revaluation is not merely questionable; it is fundamentally compromised.
Hampton taxpayers were right to object, right to appeal, and right to demand accountability.
SUPERIOR COURT HEARING
TAXPAYERS V. HAMPTON
JANUARY 8, 2026. 9AM
BRENTWOOD
