Boston Property Tax Appeals: Abatements, ATB, and Refunds

If you believe your home is overvalued on Boston’s tax rolls, a Boston property tax appeal starts with filing an abatement application with the city’s Assessing Department, and if that’s denied, continues with a petition to the state Appellate Tax Board. For Fiscal Year 2026, the abatement application deadline is February 2, 2026.¹ The process looks simple on the form. In practice, a handful of procedural rules decide most cases before anyone looks at the valuation.

What Date Your Evidence Has to Match

Every Boston property is valued as of January 1 of the year preceding the fiscal year. For FY2026, the city’s number is supposed to reflect what your home was worth on January 1, 2025.¹ The legal standard is “fair cash value,” meaning what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller, with neither under pressure to act.²

That date governs your evidence. Comparable sales from calendar year 2024 are the strongest proof for a FY2026 appeal because they bracket the January 1, 2025 valuation date. A sale from March 2025, however favorable, happened after the assessment date and carries less weight.

Building a Case That Will Actually Move the Number

The Assessing Department will not reduce your valuation because you think it’s too high. You need a specific dollar figure for what the property is worth, backed by market data.

The strongest evidence is comparable sales: recent transactions involving homes similar to yours in size, condition, location, and age, within your neighborhood, from the calendar year before the assessment date. Adjust for meaningful differences. If a comparable had a renovated kitchen and yours doesn’t, account for the gap. Two or three well-chosen comparables are more persuasive than a long list of loosely related sales.

Also think about physical problems the city may not know about. A professional appraisal from a licensed appraiser gives you an independent valuation the department takes seriously. If the property has structural damage, a failing roof, or environmental contamination, photos and repair estimates from licensed contractors help quantify the hit to market value. The abatement form has space for these details, and leaving it blank is a wasted opportunity.

Filing the Abatement Application

The official form is State Tax Form 128, available through the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.³ You can also download a copy pre-filled for your parcel through the Boston Property Lookup tool after third-quarter tax bills go out in late December. The form asks for your parcel ID, a description of the property, and your opinion of value with supporting data.

You can submit it three ways:

By mail to the Assessing Department, Room 301, 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201.
In person at Room 301 at Boston City Hall, or at the Taxpayer Referral and Assistance Center on the Mezzanine level.
Through the Boston Property Lookup tool, under the “Taxes and Exemptions” tab for your property.

The FY2026 deadline is February 2, 2026. You cannot file until after your third-quarter tax bill is issued, and you cannot file an abatement for a prior fiscal year.¹ If you mail the application, the postmark date counts as the filing date under the statute, so a certified mail receipt or certificate of mailing is worth getting.² Miss the deadline and you lose the right to challenge your FY2026 assessment entirely, regardless of how strong your case is.

The Information Requisition Form

Boston requires a completed Information Requisition Form submitted along with your abatement application. If the Assessing Department doesn’t receive the requested information within 30 days of your filing, it will deny the application. Failing to submit the form can also cost you the right to appeal to the Appellate Tax Board.¹ This is where careless mistakes happen most often. People prepare the abatement application carefully, then treat the requisition form as paperwork and lose on a technicality.

Keep Paying Your Taxes While the Appeal Is Pending

Filing an abatement application does not pause your tax bill. Under Massachusetts law, if your full-year tax exceeds $5,000, your abatement cannot be granted unless you have paid the entire tax due, including every preliminary and actual installment, without incurring late interest.⁴ Most Boston residential bills clear that threshold easily, so the rule applies to nearly every homeowner filing an appeal.

There is one alternative. Instead of paying the full current-year bill, you can pay at least the average of your tax bills (reduced by any abatements) for the three preceding years. If you had no tax due in any of those years, the full current-year amount applies.⁴ Either way, falling behind while your abatement is pending is one of the surest ways to have your case dismissed. If the appeal reaches the Appellate Tax Board, the city can move to dismiss for nonpayment.⁵

If the Assessors Send You an Information Request

Separately from the Information Requisition Form filed with your application, the Assessing Department may send you a formal request for information to help determine your property’s value. State law gives you 60 days to respond. Ignoring the request bars you from any further statutory appeal, including an appeal to the Appellate Tax Board, unless you can show that the failure was beyond your control or that you made a good-faith attempt to comply.⁶

Providing false information carries the same penalty. Residential owners who ignore the request also face a $50 penalty added to the following year’s tax bill, provided the assessors warned you about it in the original request.⁶ The dollar amount is small. Losing your appeal rights over a form you forgot to return is not.

What Happens During the City’s Review

Once your application is on file, the Assessing Department has three months to act. If no decision issues within that window, the application is automatically treated as denied by operation of law. This “deemed denied” rule keeps your case from sitting indefinitely.⁷ You and the city can agree in writing to extend the period, but absent an extension, the clock is firm.

During the review, the department may ask to inspect the property. Cooperating is almost always worth it, especially if your abatement rests on condition issues. An inspector who sees water damage or a crumbling foundation firsthand is more likely to recommend an adjustment than one reading a description on a form. After the review, you receive a written notice saying the abatement was granted in full, granted in part, or denied. That notice is the final city-level action and starts the clock for a state appeal.

Appealing to the Appellate Tax Board

If the Assessing Department denies your abatement or grants only a partial reduction, you can appeal to the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board, a state-level body that hears tax disputes independently of the city.⁸ You must file your petition within three months of the date the Assessing Department issued its decision, or three months from the date the application was deemed denied.⁹

If the Assessing Department failed to send you a notice of denial within 10 days of the deemed-denial date, and you missed the three-month window as a result, you may be able to file a petition for late entry within two months after the deadline would have passed.⁸ It’s a safety valve, not a strategy.

Formal and Informal Procedure

The ATB has two tracks. The informal procedure uses simplified evidence rules that make self-representation realistic. If your property is assessed above $20,000, however, the city can elect within 30 days to move the case to the formal procedure, which runs closer to a courtroom.¹⁰ Nearly every Boston residential property is assessed well above $20,000, so the city has that option in most cases. If your appeal goes formal, consider bringing in an attorney or tax consultant.

Filing Fees

ATB filing fees are scaled to assessed value:

$20,000 or less: $10
$20,001 to $100,000: $50
$100,001 to $999,999: $100
$1,000,000 and above: $0.10 per $1,000 of assessed value, capped at $5,000

For most Boston homeowners, the fee is $100.¹¹

Interest on a Refund

If you win your abatement at any stage and have already paid the full tax, the city must refund the overpayment with interest at 8% per year, calculated from the date you paid or the tax due date, whichever came later.¹² No refund issues if you still owe an outstanding balance on the tax the abatement relates to. That 8% rate is set by statute and doesn’t track market rates, which makes it a real reason to push a strong case through to the end.

Programs That Are Not Appeals

An abatement is the right tool only when you can show the city’s valuation is wrong. If your valuation is accurate but your bill still feels high, Boston runs separate relief programs that lower what you owe without challenging the assessment. The residential exemption for owner-occupants saved eligible homeowners up to $4,353.74 on their FY2026 tax bill and is applied automatically to the third-quarter bill once you qualify.¹³ Personal exemptions exist for seniors, veterans, surviving spouses, and legally blind residents, with FY2026 applications due by April 1, 2026.¹⁴ You can pursue an abatement and an exemption in the same year.

Federal Tax on a Refund

A successful abatement refund can create federal taxable income. Under the IRS tax benefit rule, if you deducted your Boston property taxes on a prior-year federal return and that deduction reduced your tax, the refund is taxable in the year you receive it and reported on Schedule 1 of Form 1040. If you took the standard deduction in the year you paid the tax, the refund is not taxable because the payment never produced a federal tax benefit.¹⁵ IRS Publication 525 has the worksheet for calculating exactly how much of a recovery to report.

1
Boston.gov. How to File For a Real Estate Tax Abatement
2
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 59 – Assessment of Local Taxes
3
Mass.gov. Property Tax Forms and Guides
4
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 59 Section 64
5
Mass.gov. Appellate Tax Board
6
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 59 Section 38D
7
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 58A – Appellate Tax Board
8
Mass.gov. Overview of the Appellate Tax Board
9
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 58A Section 7
10
Cornell Law Institute. 831 CMR 1.09 – Transfer of Appeals from Informal to Formal
11
Mass.gov. Appellate Tax Board Filing Fee Schedule
12
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 59 Section 69
13
Boston.gov. Residential Exemption
14
Boston.gov. Filing for a Property Tax Exemption
15
IRS. Publication 525 – Taxable and Nontaxable Income