People ex rel. Morewood Realty Holding Co. v. Cantor

Headnote

Tax — assessments which have been reduced by resolution of a board of tax commissioners may not be lawfully confirmed at their original figure by a new board which succeeds it in office.

People ex rel. Morewood Realty Holding Co. v. Cantor, 195 App. Div. 190 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered February 4,. 1921, which unanimously affirmed an order of Special Term reducing assessments for taxation on real property of the relator in the borough of Manhattan. The petition for the writ of certiorari alleged that the assessments were erroneous by reason of overvaluation, and that the assessments were illegal by reason of the fact that, although resolutions of the board of tax commissioners as then constituted were adopted December 14 and 31, 1917, reducing the assessments, the' defendants, on January 31, 1918, adopted resolutions to confirm the assessments as entered, and fixed the assessments accordingly, which was alleged to be contrary to the provisions of section 898 of the New York city charter. Upon the trial at Special Term the court found, upon the, issue of overvaluation, that the actual value.of the parcels was not less than the amounts

at which they were assessed but held that the action of the defendants in adopting, at their meeting of January 31, 1918, the resolution confirming the assessments as entered and fixing them at such amounts after the resolutions by their predecessors reducing the assessments adopted at the meetings of December 14 and 31, 1917, was illegal, and that,- therefore, the assessments should be reduced to the sums stated in the resolutions adopted at the meetings of December 14 and 31, 1917.