More than 40K N.B. homeowners face another wave of property tax increases in 2025
CBC
New Brunswick homeowners by the tens of thousands are facing property tax increases in 2025, and New Brunswick municipalities remain without powers promised to them two elections ago that could help slow or even stop the surge.
Andrew Black, president of the Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick, said hope has faded that municipal financial reforms — first pledged by Blaine Higgs in 2018 — will arrive before a new wave of property tax increases wash over homeowners in large numbers again next year.
"That's unrealistic, unfortunately," said Black, in an interview, about the chances New Brunswick might implement promised municipal financial reforms this year.
"Municipalities would like that to be in place before the start of the new year but it's unrealistic in the conversation and the process that's going on now."
Communities all over New Brunswick have experienced record increases in property values over the last three years, mostly on homes and apartment buildings.
That has led to rising assessments on those properties, and municipalities are having difficulty preventing much of those increases from forcing taxes higher.
Fifth Street in Moncton is typical.
Rising property values in the area neighbourhoods caused tax assessments on the street to jump an average of 18 per cent in 2022, 20 per cent in 2023 and another 18 per cent this year.
Robert Caverly bought a house on Fifth Street in 2021, but in June he sold it and moved across the provincial border to a spot near Amherst, Nova Scotia. He cites rising residential property taxes as a major reason.
"We were actually planning on staying in Moncton," said Caverly in an interview.
"But it's like we decided, you know, with the increase in the taxes, that was a big thing."
At the time Caverly bought his Moncton house it carried a municipal tax bill of $2,060, based on an assessed value of $123,400. This year the assessment was up to $316,700, and the bill he received had nearly doubled to $3,947.
About $400 of the tax increase was caused by Caverly building a garage, valued at $28,000, on the property.
But most of the increase, more than $1,400 worth, was caused by the tax assessment on the house itself escalating rapidly, and residential property tax rates in the city of Moncton are not falling fast enough to compensate.
