Q: What value do I put in the “Assessment” field of the Residential Property Information Form?
A: When entering information in the “Assessment” section of the Residential Property Information Form, please ensure that you use the Assessed Value appearing on the Geowarehouse Overview – NOT the amount on the Property Inquiry report from the City of Hamilton, or any Phased-in value.
Assessed Value is determined every four years, and the increase is “phased in” over the following four-year period. Assessed Value is what the City determines the property to actually be worth (usually less than what it sells for), while the Phased-In Value is what is used to determine property taxes for that year (it is done this way so that homeowners don’t get a big spike in property tax every four years).
The “Assessment” field was a required field in the regional Matrix system and was implemented in RAHB Matrix so that we could facilitate data-sharing.