SamPratt.com

Want to know what your new property tax assessment is? Looking for “comps” to plead your case before your local tax grievance board? Just nosy?

Well, the Columbia County Real Property Tax Service Agency has put up a search engine which allows anyone to search the current and proposed tax assessments of any property in the County at this link.

The technology is a little wonky, and takes some getting used to... You may need to fiddle a bit with your search terms to zero in on the right property. My suggestion is to choose your town from the pull-down menu of “Municipalities” up top, and then enter just the first word of your street name in the corresponding field. If multiple options are suggested, just ignore the pop-up menus and click “search” on these basic terms. Then check through the search results to find your place.

If you make your search too specific, the engine may miss the mark... For example, it has a low tolerance for variant spellings of stuff like “County Route 27” vs. “Cty. Rte. 27” vs. “Cty Rt 27” vs. “CR 27” (all of which I’ve seen used in various official records).