If by “this year,” you mean you have applied since the July 1st start of Fiscal Year 2026, within the next two weeks you will receive a “certificate” via U.S. Mail that your exemption has been approved. The certificate is a piece of paper that is about 4 by 8.5 inches that contains details about what your Fiscal Year 2026 property tax bill is and how much it is being reduced by the exemption.
The Assessors’ Office had to wait until the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) certified our new tax rate – a process delayed this year until the DOR finished with our lengthy once-in-every-five years recertification process.
Once the tax rate is certified, we can calculate exactly how each exemption will reduce each affected property tax bill – enabling us to mail out the certificates and include each exemption in the third and fourth quarter (fiscal year) property tax bills being mailed you at the end of this month. These bills, by the way, will be due on February 2nd and May 1st, respectively.
February 2nd also is important for another reason: If you disagree with your assessed value, and want to make your case to have it lowered, state law gives you from the date you received your third and fourth quarter tax bills until February 2nd to file an abatement application with the Assessors’ Office. (Once an application is received, the Board of Assessors has 90 calendar days to review it and render its decision on it.)
Abatement application forms are available on the Assessors’ Office page of the town’s website (https://www.townofholliston.us/188/Assessors). Go down the alphabetical order list on the left side of that page and click on “Real Estate Abatement Application” to access the form.
It’s important that anyone submitting an abatement application includes their opinion of their property’s value within this context: The date of valuation for these bills is January 1, 2025, with residential values based on property sales in Holliston between July 1, 2023 and December 31, 2024.
