Government-Citizen informational inequity
The New Brunswick Ombudsman has recently released a report outlining some potential problems with the New Brunswick property assessment appeal process. One of the problems the report deals with is an imbalance of information held by the province when compared to information available to citizens.
Broadly, an assessor can base her assessment on information about properties that have sold that are similar to a property being assessed. While there is a practice of sharing this information with an assessment appellant, there is no obligation, and "disclosure is limited to a number of circumstances."
The information about property sales in this province is considered private information, thus it is protected. This is not the case in many other places in Canada and the US. Zillow.com illustrates this clearly by readily sharing much of this "private" information about US property sales.
While privacy of citizens should be respected, a system seems flawed when one party (in this case the Province) has access and ability to use information and the other party has this access limited .
By making sales information available to the public the assessment appeal process will be more fair.
Also if this information was more readily available the real estate market might be more efficient in general, it is held in economic theory that "[t]he existence of information asymmetry gives rise to problems such as moral hazard, and adverse selection... "
The Ombudsman's recommendations to bridge the informational gap is a good step and should be followed up on.
Broadly, an assessor can base her assessment on information about properties that have sold that are similar to a property being assessed. While there is a practice of sharing this information with an assessment appellant, there is no obligation, and "disclosure is limited to a number of circumstances."
The information about property sales in this province is considered private information, thus it is protected. This is not the case in many other places in Canada and the US. Zillow.com illustrates this clearly by readily sharing much of this "private" information about US property sales.
While privacy of citizens should be respected, a system seems flawed when one party (in this case the Province) has access and ability to use information and the other party has this access limited .
By making sales information available to the public the assessment appeal process will be more fair.
Also if this information was more readily available the real estate market might be more efficient in general, it is held in economic theory that "[t]he existence of information asymmetry gives rise to problems such as moral hazard, and adverse selection... "
The Ombudsman's recommendations to bridge the informational gap is a good step and should be followed up on.
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