Appealing Your Tax Assessment

Aloha Kakou:


In the Letters to the Editor section of today's Maui News is an opinion by Bruce Faulkner, president of the Realtors Association of Maui. His op-ed piece is regarding appealing your property tax assessment and he includes a paragraph regarding leasehold apartments:


"Another stumbling block involves leasehold apartments. Because the leasehold apartment owner does not have a fee-simple interest in the ground under the apartment, the market value of a leasehold apartment is often considerably less than similar fee-simple apartments. But the law does not recognize the difference when it comes to property taxes. Leasehold properties are taxed as if they are fee simple. We often hear leasehold apartment owners complain that is not fair. It may not be but it is how the tax code is written and appeals based on leasehold values not being equal to fee simple do not succeed."


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