New Changes in Tax Court Procedure

For taxpayers in Mercer, Middlesex and Monmouth Counties, who have matters pending before the New Jersey Tax Court, our job just got even easier (and faster). Historically, a property tax matter filed in the New Jersey Tax Court would require the two attorneys to make several appearances in Court before the matter would finally be scheduled for trial. The first appearance, which would be scheduled anywhere between 8 and 18 months after the original filing, would usually not yield much in the way of productive results. The second appearance, which may have been scheduled about two months later, would generally lead to the parties being instructed by the Court to complete discovery and discuss settlement. On the third appearance, the Judge would tell the parties to go get appraisals and continue discussing settlement. If the matter did not settle by the fifth appearance, we could usually ask the Court to schedule a trial. While each case was unique, we never got to a trial without at least 4 prior Court appearances.

With 60,000 property tax cases pending before the Tax Court and only 6 Judges to hear all of them, the case management process has not only been burdensome for the attorneys, but it has also exhausted the Court’s limited resources. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of showing up to Tax Court on a Wednesday morning, when there are 400 cases scheduled for case management, you have unfortunately missed out on a miraculous event, that has apparently been phased out of the process, at least by one out of the six Judges who hear Real Estate Tax Appeals.

Judge Sundar, who presides over Tax Appeals for Mercer, Middlesex and Monmouth County properties, has implemented a new plan to speed up the Tax Appeal process. The plan involves having the two attorneys work out the details of the case management process on their own and reporting the status to the Judge via email. This will eventually lead to the Court being able to increase the number of cases it can clear, rather than dealing with an issue that can usually be resolved by the two attorneys on a case. As much as I enjoyed spending my Wednesday mornings in downtown Trenton chatting with my colleagues about capitalization rates, equalization ratios and external obsolescence, while waiting for my cases to be called, it will be nice to be able to devote the 3 hours to more productive pursuits.

Effective immediately, Judge Sundar will no longer require attorneys to appear in Court for case management conferences, except for matters that commenced prior to 2013 or in cases where a case management order has already been entered. We can only hope that the other 5 Judges will adopt the same policy.

For more information about tax appeals, please feel free to contact our office.