You asked if a town must hear a property tax assessment appeal when the statutory filing deadline falls on a weekend and the town receives the taxpayer’s petition on Saturday or Sunday. The Office of Legislative Research cannot give legal opinions and you should not regard this memo as such.

The law gives taxpayers until February 20 to file an appeal with the town’s board of assessment appeals and bans the board from hearing appeals filed after that date (CGS § 12-112). But it does not prevent the board from hearing an appeal after that date if it was filed on or before the 20^th regardless of whether that date fell on a weekend:

No appeal from the doings of the assessors in any town shall be heard or entertained by the board of assessment appeals…unless written appeal is made on or before February twentieth in accordance with the provisions of section 12-111.

Towns must hear and decide appeals in March. A town must extend the filing deadline to March 20 if its chief executive officer gives the board an extra month to hear the appeals. In this case, the board must finish hearing the appeals in April instead of March (CGS §§ 12-111 and 12-117).

The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) advises towns to accept appeals that were filed on or before the 20^th regardless of whether the deadline fell on a weekend, OPM’s Kathleen Rubenbauer stated. Rubenbauer who, is is assigned to OPM’s Intergovernmental Policy Division, works closely with assessors. A taxpayer who delivered his petition to the town on the weeked but was denied a hearing can appeal the town’s refusal to hear accept his petition to the Superior Court.

JR: dw