Letters

This letter is for an attorney who wants to make a lot of money from the contingent fee accompanying a class action lawsuit against Southampton Village.

The village uses a 1992 appraisal to determine assessed values for unimproved properties. This discriminates against low-valued properties, because in the last 30 years, all properties have increased in value, but high-value properties have increased at a much higher rate. This causes low-valued properties to be charged a disproportionate share of the village tax burden.

For improved properties, the village uses the cost of the improvements to determine the assessed values. So one pool of residents has assessed values based on 1992 dollars and the other is based on current dollars spent for improvements. No wonder the system produces absurd and unfair results!

There is a third set. If you file a grievance, the trustees will completely ignore the facts in the grievance and arbitrarily compute an assessed value. If they used this arbitrary method on their own properties, their assessed values would increase. But, of course, they only use it on the residents filing the grievance, because this supports their vindictive, greedy, corrupt motives.

For the attorney, I will provide scores of residents who could be plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Note additional facts you have for the lawsuit: The village sends each resident an annual tax bill, which contains a nonsensical low-ball amount for “full market value,” and the reference to “full market value” is a deception, because full market value is not used in determining assessed values.

Also, the village destroys all records of the calculation of assessed value, so no resident can review the computation for their property. The village administration refuses to tell the residents how assessed values are actually determined and have been put on full notice of the issues since February 2022.

This is a winnable lawsuit, and you would be a hero to the residents who are being discriminated against.

A possible additional class of plaintiffs are all the residents of the village, because the village has destroyed the records that support the calculation of individual assessed values. Each resident should request a copy of the calculation of their assessed value. If the village refuses to provide it, the resident should refuse to pay the tax bill. Residents should sue for a refund of all prior taxes paid.

David Rung

Southampton Village