Assessing

Mission Statement

The Assessing Department provides the Town with fiscal stability by ensuring the Town’s personal and real property is promptly, fairly, and equitably valued and classified for tax purposed. Additionally, the Department administers motor vehicle and boat excise taxes in a fair and efficient manner. The Department also administers the statutory exemption program for eligible taxpayers and coordinates the senior abatement work off program, and prepares the annual recap for the purpose of setting the annual tax rate.

Property Assessments

The property assessment database is hosted by Patriot Properties. It is a snapshot of Swampscott’s real property data (Residential and Commercial); the data is frozen in time, or “static." In each January, the data found linked here is extracted from the Assessor’s database. A replacement static database will arrive in the following January, after that new database has been fully approved by the MA Department of Revenue. During the year, results of abatement reviews, on-site inspection visits, and all other corrections or adjustments that are entered into our active (internal) database WILL NOT be recognized/updated at any time during the 12 months that this public database is available. They will be part of the replacement database. Residential real property assessments are primarily based on similar, qualified sales of housing units in Swampscott. Commercial and Industrial real property assessments are primarily based on "income and expense data" that is attributable to other similar, qualified properties.

Staff Contacts

Name Title
Lisa Taylor Administrative Assistant
Cheryl Moschella Director of Assessment