Who sets your assessment in Monroe County?
Monroe County does not assess your home. Its 19 towns and the City of Rochester each assess locally, and each has its own Board of Assessment Review to hear challenges.
The county's property portal is informational only. When it is time to act, you file with your town or city assessor's office, and their calendar is the one that matters. Your tax bill names the office that assesses you, which is the right place to call first.
This mirrors the statewide pattern: outside New York City, assessment happens at the town and city level, and the challenge form everywhere is RP-524, the Complaint on Real Property Assessment.
That local structure is why two neighbors in different towns can face different deadlines and very different assessment ratios for similar homes.
What did Rochester's 2024 reassessment change?
Rochester's 2024 citywide revaluation raised residential assessments by an average of 68.4 percent, one of the most dramatic resets in the state. But the city tax rate dropped about 38 percent at the same time, so homes whose values rose less than roughly 60 percent actually saw their city taxes go down.
That is the key lesson for appealing after a reval: a big percentage jump does not automatically mean a big tax jump. What matters is whether your home was over-assessed relative to similar homes.
The flip side is just as important. If your assessment rose far more than comparable properties nearby, you are carrying more than your share of the levy, and that imbalance persists every year until it is corrected.
Either way, if the new value is simply higher than your home would sell for, that gap is your case.
When is the deadline to appeal in Monroe County?
The town cycle runs on the statewide calendar, and Rochester runs earlier. All deadlines are received-by, not postmark.
Mark May 1 on your calendar if you are in a town. The three to four weeks that follow are the entire practical filing window. The key dates:
- Towns publish tentative rolls on May 1.
- Town Grievance Day is the fourth Tuesday in May. May 26, 2026 has passed, so the next one is in May 2027.
- Final town rolls are filed July 1.
- SCAR petitions after a denial are generally due within 30 days of the final roll filing, typically in July, so check your town's dates now if you grieved this spring.
- The City of Rochester publishes its tentative roll around March 1 and hears grievances in March. Check with the city assessor for the exact dates.
What is your assessment actually saying?
Outside recently revalued rolls like Rochester's, many New York towns assess at a fraction of market value, so the number on the roll is not a sale price. To translate it, divide your assessed value by your town's residential assessment ratio.
The effect can be dramatic. On Long Island, a Brookhaven home assessed at $2,400 implies a market value of about $500,000, and fractional Monroe County towns work the same way at their own ratios.
Remember that a small assessed number is not a bargain. Rates are set against fractional values, so an oversized share of the roll means an oversized bill no matter how small the number looks.
Your town's current ratio is available from the assessor's office. Use the published figure for the math, not a guess.
Your appeal argument is that this implied market value exceeds what your home would sell for. Recent sales of comparable homes are the proof.
How does the appeal process work?
The steps are the same in every Monroe County town, and filing is free. Ask for a specific number: translate your comparable sales into a market value, convert it with your town's ratio, and request that assessed value on the form.
- When the tentative roll comes out, look up your assessed value and your town's residential assessment ratio, then compute your implied market value.
- Gather evidence: three to five recent comparable sales, photos of condition issues, a recent appraisal or purchase price, and any property record errors.
- File Form RP-524, the Complaint on Real Property Assessment, so it is received by your Board of Assessment Review by Grievance Day. Postmarks do not count.
- The board reviews your complaint and can only lower or confirm your assessment, never raise it.
- If denied, file for Small Claims Assessment Review. SCAR costs $30, is an informal small claims style hearing, and covers owner-occupied one, two, and three family homes.
How much money is at stake?
The Rochester metro's effective property tax rate is 1.82 percent, the highest of any US metro with more than a million people. The county's median home value is $244,700 with a median tax bill of $5,763, about 2.36 percent by that source.
For perspective, the average US single-family bill in 2025 was $4,427 at an average rate of 0.90 percent. Monroe homeowners pay a larger bill on far cheaper homes because the rate is more than double the national average.
On that median home, a 10 percent assessment reduction saves about $575 a year, and the saving recurs each year the lower value holds. If your home sits in a town rather than the city, the metro-high rate still drives the math: every dollar of over-assessment costs more here than in most of the country.
STAR, the school tax exemption for owner-occupied primary residences, is separate from appealing and unaffected by it, and other exemption programs are worth checking as a complementary way to lower the same bill.
Is it worth appealing in Monroe County?
With the highest effective rate among large US metros, over-assessment costs more here than almost anywhere. Filing is free, the board can only lower or confirm your value, and the follow-up SCAR petition is just $30.
The best time to build your case is now, not the week the roll comes out. Comparable sales, the ratio math, and photos take time to assemble, and the town filing window is only a few weeks long. Rochester's post-reval roll also makes side-by-side comparisons with similar homes unusually easy, since every city property was just revalued at once.
If you would rather have professionals run it, Homespring handles the evidence, filing, and hearings end to end with no upfront fee, timed to your town's or Rochester's calendar.