Is your property tax problem a fight or a filing?

Updated 2026-08-27.

Two different kinds of work get called property tax consulting. One argues with a number the city has already set. The other puts a benefit on the bill before a deadline closes. They use different agencies, different evidence and different calendars, and most of this site is about the first kind.

Why does the difference matter?

A fight starts from a determination that already exists: a Notice of Property Value, a penalty notice, an exemption that was removed. It runs on the city's clock, and missing that clock usually costs you a year rather than the argument. A filing runs on the benefit's own calendar, and it often has to happen before something else entirely, before the first building permit, before January 5, before the work is finished. Missing that one can cost the benefit itself.

The fights

Something has already been decided and you disagree. These are the four, and this site is mostly about the first two.
The problem	Where does it go?	The service
The assessed value or the tax class on your Notice of Property Value is wrong	NYC Tax Commission, by March 1 or March 15	Annual Tax Appeals
Finance holds the wrong description, or its market value rests on a factual error	Department of Finance, by March 15 or April 1	Finance Department Appeals
An RPIE penalty was assessed and should not have been	Department of Finance	RPIE Penalty Removal
A benefit you already had was reduced, suspended or revoked	Tax Commission and Finance, depending on the benefit	Reinstatement of Benefits

The last of those is the one owners least expect to exist. Finance prescribes strict reporting for most properties carrying an exemption or abatement, and the firm's own description of what follows is blunt: non-compliance may lead to diminution, suspension and even revocation of those benefits, and where the city has wrongly deprived a property of one there are procedural safeguards for contesting the determination. A revoked benefit is a fight, not a fresh application.

The one that is both at once

The non-primary residence surcharge, the tax the press calls the pied-a-terre tax, is answered either by filing an exemption with Finance or by challenging the market value at Finance or the Tax Commission. Those two are not independent. On the final rule's terms, asking the Tax Commission to review the exemption requires challenging the value as well, and its determination replaces the direct exemption application to Finance. The Tax Commission's own surcharge page describes the routes more simply, as alternatives, so read the rule before treating either description as the whole picture. That fork has nine sites of its own, starting at the surcharge notice explained and the two appeal routes, and the firm's service page is the non-primary residence surcharge.

The filing that is compelled rather than requested

The Real Property Income and Expense statement is neither a fight nor a benefit. It is a disclosure the city requires from income-producing property with an actual assessed value of more than $40,000 on the tentative assessment roll, nothing is granted for making it, and the reason it belongs on a site about appeals is that skipping it costs you the hearing: RPIE filing, and what it does to an appeal is on the RPIE page.

The benefit filings, and what each one runs on

485-x, the Affordable Neighborhoods for New Yorkers exemption, on new multiple dwellings and eligible conversions of 6 or more units. For a project commencing on or after April 20, 2024 the registration notice is due no later than six months after the commencement date, and on a site of 100 or more units the Comptroller and HPD have to be notified at least three months before construction starts.
421-a for the program HPD implemented in October 2017, and old 421-a for the 421-a (1-15) benefits that closed to new construction at the end of 2015 and still run for as long as 25 years, with their filings and phase-out schedules alive the whole time.
J-51, which is now two programs under one name: the original, expired for work completed after June 29, 2022 but still running on thousands of buildings, and J-51 R for eligible work completed on or before June 29, 2026, on a filing clock that starts at completion.
ICAP, where the sequence is the whole game. The preliminary application has to be submitted before the first building permit is issued, and the benefit has to be renewed for its entire life.
The not-for-profit exemption under RPTL 420-a and its neighbours, for houses of worship, hospitals and not-for-profit schools. Federal 501(c)(3) status alone does not qualify a property, the exemption follows the qualifying use portion by portion, and it renews every year.
The co-op and condo abatement, filed by the board or its agent for every eligible unit rather than by the unit owner. The mechanics and the February 15 deadline are on the exemptions page.
Exemption renewals for ICAP, ICIP and not-for-profit benefits, due January 5 for the tax year beginning the following July 1. Failure to renew lets Finance suspend the benefit and the property returns to full taxation until the certificate is current.

The question that comes before any notice

Buyers, developers, investors and lenders often need the number before there is anything to argue with, which is tax opinions and projections. It is advisory work rather than a filing, and it is the one thing on this page that has no deadline attached.

Where does this site fit?

Almost everything else here is the first row of the first table: the assessment, read off the notice, argued at the Tax Commission on these dates, using the value the caps actually produced, with the record corrections Finance owns alongside it and the courts after it. If your problem turned out to be somewhere else on this page, the number is the same one: 212-343-1111.